The Thunder In Her Blood
by tangledribbons
Summary: Ginny Weasley had always known that the world was split up into two types of people: those who were scared of thunderstorms, and those who were thrilled by them. And she had always known that she fell firmly into the latter category.
1. ONE

Author's Note: No, this doesn't mean I've stopped writing Chaos. I am, in fact, now off to finish a chapter of it. I just got this finished first and thought, hey, I'll post it. Why not.

This is set at the start of Ginny's fifth year, which means it's the start of the Trio's sixth year. I'm completely ignoring the fact that Percy buggered off. Just because I can. There may be a few other canon plot points that I'll be ignoring/changing, but I'll keep you updated on them when and if they happen.

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><p><span>ONE<span>

Ginny Weasley had always known that the world was split up into two types of people: those who were scared of thunderstorms, and those who were thrilled by them. And she had always known that she fell firmly into the latter category.

She always knew when a storm was coming. She would stand at her bedroom window for hours beforehand, watching and waiting for that first flash of lightning, that first rumble of thunder. And then, quick as anything, she would tear down the stairs and out of the house before her mother could stop her and run for the hill behind the Burrow. She loved nothing better than to stand on that hill, barefoot on the grass in the pouring rain, lightning flashing overhead and thunder crashing around her, rumbling through her very being. It made her feel alive in a way that nothing else ever could, or would. She would stand there for as long as she could, telling herself over and over again that she would stay until the end of the storm, that she would not leave for anything, for anyone. But every time she would leave before the finish, allow herself to be taken away by whichever bedraggled, red-headed brother her mother sent to fetch her.

Because as much as she loved the storms, they were family, and family always came first.

* * *

><p>"Honestly, Ginevra," Molly scolded as she attacked her only daughter's head with a towel, "I don't know what we'll do with you. You're going to get pneumonia one of these days, and then you'll wish you listened to me."<p>

"I know, mum," Ginny agreed blandly. Unlike the twins, she had learnt early on that if she wanted an easy life then agreeing with their mother worked a lot better than arguing with her. Sure enough, her mother harrumphed once more before grabbing a comb and silently yanking it through the messy red waves of her daughter's hair.

"There, now go and sit in front of the fire and dry out," Molly instructed. Ginny hopped off the chair and hurried into the next room where Ron and Percy were playing chess. She sat on the rug by the fire and drew her knees up to her chest, a smile on her face as she thought of the storm still raging outside. It was a summer storm, and summer storms were the best. You could stand in them for hours; the air was always so warm that getting drenched to the bone didn't bother Ginny as much as it did in the winter when the chill had set in.

"You really must stop acting like such a child, Ginevra," Percy said suddenly and sternly, dragging his sister out of her thoughts, "It's dangerous to be out by yourself." Ginny felt her Weasley temper flare, interrupting the happy calm that had settled over her since she returned from the hill. She turned a glare on her brother.

"Are you saying that I can't look after myself, Percy?" she asked sweetly, a glint in her eyes the only warning of the danger her brother was in.

"I am simply saying that you are too young to expect to be able to defend yourself against death eaters," he answered pompously, Ron nodding in agreement at his side. Neither saw the bat-bogey hex coming.

"Good shot, Gin," George said, walking into the room with a towel in one hand and a steaming cup of tea in the other. It had been he who had dragged her in from the storm, getting thoroughly soaked for his trouble. They both watched with a sort of morbid interest as their brothers flailed around the room, trying vainly to escape their own bogeys.

"Where's Fred?" Ginny asked after a few minutes. It was rare to see one twin without the other, especially these days. Business was going so well for them that they had moved out of The Burrow and into the flat above their shop.

"He had an allergic reaction to a product we tested, so now he's stuck in bed for a week," George said with a smirk. Ginny giggled, trying not to imagine what could have gone wrong with a WWW product.

"Sorry about you getting all wet coming to get me."

"What's a brother for if not getting wet for his sister," George said jovially. Ginny turned to stare at him, and even Ron and Percy had disbelieving looks on their faces as they continued to fight their own bogeys off.

"What?" George asked, confused, before it clicked into place, "Oh, you dirty-minded sods! Merlin, people these days." He muttered as he turned and left the room. Ginny waited a second before laughing out loud; if George knew she was laughing at him, there would surely be retaliation, and retaliation from the twins was a lot scarier than it was from anyone else. At the best, it involved public humiliation, at the worst she could be traumatized for life. Poor Ron still hadn't gotten over the teddy bear incident.

"What was that for?" Ron demanded angrily, the effects of her spell having finally worn off. Percy didn't even bother speaking to her, simply leaving the room with his nose in the air.

"Evidence, my dear brother, it was evidence. That I can in fact look after myself," Ginny said, looking out of the window as another clap of thunder shook her heart, "And besides, what death eater is going to be out in this weather?"

* * *

><p>Let it never be said that Severus Snape enjoyed his life as a spy for the Light side. It was all too often full of nasty, dirty, gruelling tasks from both of his masters. One such task being the reason he was searching a muddy field for a certain elusive plant in the middle of a thunderstorm.<p>

"Bloody... fucking... Ooo!" He dove forward suddenly as a green leaf was illuminated by a flash of lightning overhead. Quickly, he extracted a vial from his sopping wet robes and posted the leaf inside. And just in time, too, as he felt someone cross the wards that surrounded the little house he was being forced to live in. Gathering his robes around him, he apparated directly into his bedroom. A quick drying spell or two later and he swept downstairs to receive his uninvited guests.

"Narcissa, Bellatrix, how... lovely to see you," he drawled, putting no effort into hiding his disdain, "Wormtail, go fetch us something to drink. Perhaps some of the elf-made wine." The rat-faced man had been hovering nearby, obviously wanting to be part of the meeting. He scowled at the potions master, but scurried away all the same.

Down to the kitchen he went, grabbing three crystal glasses and a bottle of the wine before rushing back upstairs, not wanting to miss anything good.

"Really, Bellatrix, you are like a child having to touch everything you see. Must I ask you again _not to_ _touch my things_!" Snape was snarling when Wormtail arrived in the living room. Trying his hardest to ignore the tension between the others in the room, he served up the wine, trying to take his time without being too conspicuous.

"Yes, Wormtail, I do know what you're doing," Snape snapped. _Damn, _Wormtail thought, then, _bloody legilimens. _The legilimens in question just smirked. "And don't even think of trying to eavesdrop in the corridor. Our master sent you here to help me, not to annoy me. Begone!"

And so Wormtail scuttled out of the room, smarting over the comment about the Dark Lord. It was _he_ who had resurrected their master, and yet he was still treated as the lowest of the low. He went straight to his sparsely decorated room to sit and fume, and so he entirely missed the significance of the event going on downstairs.

Severus Snape did not have that luxury, however, and did not miss a second as he made the Unbreakable Vow to protect his brat of a godson. It was something that he would never have done had he had a choice, no matter how much he objected to the position Draco Malfoy had been put in. The fact remained that Albus was infinitely more important to the war, and to the Light side in particular than Draco was, or would ever be. Severus would rather die than kill Albus. And so Severus knew that he had, in all likelihood, just signed his own death warrant.

"Wormtail!" he yelled as the two sisters left his house. "Wormtail!" he yelled again, having not immediately received an answer. He heard the scurrying of the despicable man's feet overhead, and soon Wormtail was hurrying down the stairs.

"Go and get me these," Severus commanded, thrusting a list of ingredients at the cowering man, "Don't be seen. When you return you will knock once on the door to my lab, and then you will leave the ingredients outside the door and you will not disturb me for the next three days. Do I make myself clear?"

"Y-yes," Wormtail squeaked, taking the list with a shaking hand.

"Good," Severus said. And with that he turned, sweeping off towards his lab, the tiny green leaf safely tucked inside his robes. He had work to do.

* * *

><p>"Are you even trying?" Ginny called, laughing as she grabbed the dropped quaffle out of the air, flying so low to the ground that her feet skimmed the muddy grass, throwing splatters of dirt up her calves.<p>

"I let that go in!" Ron protested, sending a glare at his little sister. Ginny laughed again, shaking her hair out of her eyes and basking for a moment in the wonderful feeling of the sun on her face. Really, she thought, the day after a thunderstorm was almost as good as the storm itself. The smell of wet grass, the sun drying the land out. Almost as good, but not as thrilling, she mused as she titled her broom upwards, climbing steeply in the air before shooting off towards Ron and their makeshift goal of tree branches.

"Ron! Ginny!" Molly's voice carried easily across the orchard, though her children both ignored her for the minute, too focused on their game. "Honestly," the plump woman muttered to herself, watching as her only daughter shot like a rocket towards her youngest son. When she was almost upon him, Ginny feinted to the right before throwing the quaffle as hard as she could to his left. Ron, to his credit, touched the ends of his fingers on the red ball before it shot past him. He groaned, burying his face in his hands. It was terrible; he could never win against her.

"Na na na na na!" Ginny taunted, flying in a loop towards her mother, pausing only to stick her tongue out at Ron.

"If you're quite finished, I thought you might like to know that Harry just arrived," Molly called, her hands on her hips as she tried to hide her amusement.

"Well, why didn't you say?" Ron demanded indignantly, forgetting quidditch for the minute and shooting down towards her. Ginny followed at a calmer pace, landing beside her mother as Ron ran from the orchard.

"He seems awfully excited," Ginny commented as they watched Ron race towards the house, "Do you ever wonder if he's just a bit... gay for Harry?"

"Ginevra!" Molly scolded, before covertly looking around and carrying on in a conspiratorial tone, "Well, no. But I've always wondered about Charlie. That boy just likes tank tops more than a straight man should." Ginny giggled, throwing her broomstick over her shoulder as they headed out of the orchard, towards the house.

When they reached the kitchen, they found Ron with his arm slung around Harry's shoulders, both chattering away excitedly about their summers. Ginny gave her mum a glance before pointedly looking at the arm around Harry's shoulders. Molly only just managed to hide her laugh as a strange sounding cough.

"You alright, mum?" Ron asked, looking at his mum with a touch of concern.

"Yes, yes, Ron I'm fine," Molly said, bustling around the kitchen as she checked on lunch, "Ginny, call your brothers down could you, and you can all have lunch before you leave, goodness knows you need feeding up Harry, dear." Ginny smiled at Harry on her way past, rolling her eyes at her mother's fussing. Harry's eyes twinkled with amusement and he tried to put an exasperated look on his face but she knew that he loved it really. She couldn't blame him either, after Sirius's death the month before he probably needed all of the parental love and concern he could get.

"Oi, lunch is ready!" she yelled up the stairs before returning to the kitchen. There was a thundering of feet on the stairs and George came hurtling down. He had stayed over the night before and would be escorting them all to Diagon Alley that afternoon. Ginny had no idea what the others had said to her mother in order to convince her to let them go without a full auror contingent, but somehow they had persuaded her that they would be fine with Fred and George and Percy there. Of course, she had no idea that Fred was stuck in bed, and they were going to keep it that way. Hermione would not have approved, had she been there, but the others felt that the little snatch of freedom was worth the risk.

"Must you shout, Ginevra?" Percy asked as he entered the kitchen after George at a more sedate pace.

"Yep," Ginny grinned, helping herself to a sandwich from the enormous plate that Molly had just placed in the middle of the table. Percy shot her an annoyed look before turning to Harry and roping him into a conversation about something dull. Cauldron bottoms, most likely, Ginny mused.

"Where'd you want to go this afternoon then, Gin?" George asked her as they watched Harry's varying expressions as he listened to Percy prattle on, all of which seemed to point towards some suicidal tendencies.

"All the normal places, I guess," she answered simply, giving her brother a pointed look. For the last few years they, along with Fred, obviously, had been sneaking into Knockturn Alley to visit a small shop owned by a strange old witch. It sold anything and everything, some of it dark but most of it just strange or old. The twins had discovered it in the summer of their second year at Hogwarts, when they bought a set of rings that allowed a slight telepathic connection to open up between the wearers. They thought they were brilliant, and had been using them ever since to scare Slytherins and first years, half of whom were convinced that the two red-headed boys were some sort of devil-twins.

"Cool," George said, winking at his sister. They would have to ditch the others, of course, but that would be simple. Ginny smiled, half of her mind wondering what hidden treasures she would find in Knockturn Alley and half of her mind drifting back to last night's thunderstorm; she couldn't help but dwell on the crashing of the thunder and the flashes of lightning, couldn't stop herself from remembering the feel of the rain lashing down on her face.

She was snapped out of her thoughts as her mother took her now empty plate from in front of her and everyone began standing up and moving away from the kitchen to gather bags and shoes that would be needed for the afternoon of shopping.

"Here, Gin," George called, throwing her old, brown bag to her across the room. She smiled her thanks to her brother before slipping her shoes on and following the rest into the living room.

"Now, remember to stick together," Molly clucked, fussing over a splodge of mud on Ron's forehead and the state of Harry's hair.

"We will, mum," the Weasley's chorused whilst Harry nodded emphatically.

"Well then, have fun," she stepped aside and motioned for Percy to go through the floo first.

"Diagon Alley!" he shouted, somehow still managing to sound like a pompous arse. Ginny really would have to find out whether he did that on purpose or if it just came naturally, she mused as she waited for her turn to go through.

She exited the fireplace in a graceless tumble at The Leaky Cauldron. Swearing under her breath, she clambered to her feet and tried to shake most of the soot from her body. A few feet away, Harry was doing the same thing, though the other three had somehow managed to get through unscathed.

"Honestly, Ginevra, you look like a homeless child," Percy said, drawing his wand from his pocket, "Scourgify, scourgify." He pointed his wand first at his little sister and then at Harry, siphoning the dirt off.

"Where do people want to go first?" Ron asked. George and Ginny exchanged a glance and Ginny nodded.

"Well, I was going to quickly check in on Fred, if that's alright with you, Percy?" George said quickly.

"Mother said we weren't to split up," Percy frowned.

"Yeah, but they'll be safe with you, won't they, Perce. Plus, you lot don't want to come see Fred, he's oozing all over everything. Or at least he was the last time I saw him. Never know, he might be at the vomit stage by now."

"George!" Three voices chorused, whilst Ginny did her best to hide a snigger.

"What?" George asked indignantly, "The vomit means he's healing!"

"Okay, George, you can go and see Fred. But be quick, and take one of this lot with you, can you? I can't be expected to keep an eye on all three of them at the same time." He glared around at Harry, Ron and Ginny as though he thought they were delinquent three year olds, about to steal sweets and kick old people. Ginny ignored this, however, too happy that her brother had given her the perfect opportunity to get away from him.

"'Kay," George said happily, grabbing Ginny by the arm and dragging her away before anyone could protest, "Come on, Gin, if we're _really _lucky he might be in the diarrhoea stage- that one means he's almost better!"

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><p>Clarence had always known exactly what her customers needed, that was why she stayed in business even though she sold her goods for a fraction of their real value. But she had always thought that a happy customer was more important than a few galleons in her pocket.<p>

This was not to say she would give away her goods, and certainly not to anyone who didn't need them. But when a deserving customer walked through her door, she would do almost anything in her power to ensure that they walked away with the tools to achieve their destinies.

Oh, yes, Clarence was a great believer in destiny.

She picked up a single feather earring from a stand behind the counter and held it up to the light, examining it from every angle. The feather was a rusty orange, sleek and smooth with not a barb out of place. A gold, patterned bead hung on a loop of metal above it, and the earring itself was long and curved with a sharp point that could draw blood if one were to be clumsy with it.

Yes, today somebody would need this earring. Today, somebody would come into her shop with thunderbird blood.


	2. TWO

A/N: Thank you to those who read and reviewed the last chapter. You are lovely people :)

I have nothing really to say here, apart from I hope you enjoy the new chapter :D

Oh, and that there's some swearing in this chapter, which there wasn't in the first, I don't think. So just a head's up.

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><p><span>TWO<span>

The bell above the door tinkled as Ginny walked in, closely followed by George. It was strange to have one twin by himself, especially for this length of time and Ginny decided that she found it even more unnerving than the two of them together. At least when there were the two of them, she knew what to expect, but George by himself was a wild card; unpredictable.

"Ah, you have arrived," the elderly shopkeeper said as she came through from the back room, "I believe I have something for you, young lady." Ginny looked up at George in confusion, but George merely shrugged and gestured her towards the counter. He did, however, follow closely behind his little sister. He may have brushed off Percy's concerns of an attack earlier, but that did not mean he was stupid.

"You do?" Ginny asked curiously. Clarence just smiled, reaching underneath the counter for a second and pulling out the earring she had put aside earlier in the day. For a minute, it was like all the air in the room had left, to be replaced by crashing thunder and howling winds. Ginny could have even sworn that she felt drops of rain on her skin. But then the minute was over and she was staring at a single feather earring, with the shopkeeper watching her expectantly, and her brother staring at her with a slight frown on his face.

"Oh, um, how much?" she asked, shaking her head slightly in an attempt to clear her mind.

"Six sickles," Clarence answered, at exactly the same time as George said, "But Ginny, you don't even have pierced ears." Ginny's mouth formed a slight 'o' and her hand went up to her ear.

"I completely forgot," she muttered with a frown, "Mum would kill me." But still something inside her shifted, unsettled at the thought of walking away from this earring.

"What does it even do?" George asked the elderly shopkeeper. In his experience, Clarence would never sell them anything harmful, but it never hurt to be cautious, especially these days.

"It is the feather of a thunderbird," Clarence explained, "It can topple cities and destroy worlds. It can command a power that our people have long forgotten. But in this case? I believe it is an ornament. And it looks fetching with your sister's hair." George rolled his eyes. Crazy old lady, he thought, missing how the shopkeeper's lips twitched upwards as though she had heard him. He looked at his sister instead, who was busy staring at the earring with a slightly glazed look in her eyes.

"Ginny?" he asked, nudging her with his elbow.

"Hmm?" she looked up at him, though he could see that it was an effort to drag her eyes away from the earring.

"Let's go, Ginny," he said. There it is, Ginny thought to herself as he tried to drag her towards the door, there's the difference between Fred and George that nobody had noticed before. George was the cautious one, whilst Fred was always game for a stupid risk or two. Fred would have offered to pierce her ear himself, whilst George tried to take her away from it. She wasn't sure in that moment which she preferred.

"Just let me buy this," she said impatiently, shaking her brother's hand off of her arm, "Six sickles, did you say?" The elderly lady nodded eagerly, holding her hand out for the money. Ginny quickly counted out six silver coins and deposited them in Clarence's waiting palm. Quick as a flash, the shopkeeper grabbed the money and darted her other hand out, stabbing the earring straight through Ginny's earlobe.

"What the fuck?" Ginny screeched, stumbling backwards and clutching her ear. George quickly put himself between the two women, wand pointed at Clarence. The old lady merely chuckled darkly and began retreating into her back room.

"I saved the world, boy, I saved the world!" she cackled before turning and making a dash for the other room. George's stunner hit the door as it slammed behind her, scorching the wood.

"Come on, Gin, let's get out of here," he turned to his sister only to find her staring into a mirror for sale, a strange, unfamiliar look in her eyes as she played with the earring. A trickle of blood ran down her neck where it had been stabbed through her earlobe but Ginny paid it no mind, transfixed on the feather. George didn't know it, but Ginny's mind was far away from him and the shop, far away from Knockturn Alley even. She was in the sky, with the grey and black clouds gathering around her, rain soaking her skin, the rumble of thunder vibrating through her body and the flash of lightning blinding her eyes.

"Ginny!" George yelled, shaking her shoulder. When he received no reaction, he took out his wand and ran a diagnostic spell over her. He was quite proficient with healing spells, had to be in his line of work. The spell should have caused any parts of his sister that were hurt to glow a bright, post-box red, making it easy to see what was wrong with her. It went haywire though, or at least that was what he assumed. Her entire body glowed red, then white, before the spell fizzled out completely. The entire process took about a second.

George was getting really worried now, but he needn't as it appeared that the spell had jogged Ginny out of her trance and she looked up at him, with an all too familiar look of annoyance on her face.

"What'd you do that for?" she asked grumpily.

"You were staring at that feather, you wouldn't answer me," George said, running a hand through his hair in relief, "How's your ear feel?"

"Fine," Ginny snapped. She wasn't quite sure why she was annoyed with her brother; it was akin to the feeling you get when somebody has woken you up when you were having a really good dream. You know they didn't do it on purpose, but you can't help but resent them slightly for it anyway. She looked again in the mirror and cleaned the trickle of blood off with a licked finger. Her eyes flashed momentarily to the feather and she again felt the rain on her skin and the thunder rumble through her body.

When they finally left the shop, she tried to take it as a coincidence that the clear blue sky had begun to cloud over.

* * *

><p>Pansy shivered in her summer dress as the sun was blotted out by enormous, rolling black clouds. She hitched her bag higher up on her shoulder and dashed down the street to Flourish and Blott's, making it inside mere seconds before it began to rain. Sighing at the pure idiocy of weather, she rummaged in her bag for her school list along with the list her father had made her of books that he deemed far more instructional. She had a feeling that she would have to go to Knockturn Alley for most of those, but it never hurt to try, she supposed.<p>

"Mother is not going to be pleased." Pansy wrinkled her nose as she recognised the voice as that of the Weasley who had been prefect in her first year. She followed the voice around a row of shelves and found herself watching an argument between the Weasley girl and her brother. Two other Weasleys and Potter himself were standing around them. The other Weasley's seemed to be agreeing with the pompous Weasley, but Potter was simply staring at Ginny, a weird look on his face. Perhaps he had a lickle crush, she mused. Pansy smirked to herself as their voices rose, they were so common that they couldn't even keep their arguments private. Peasants.

"Merlin, it's just an earring!" the girl exclaimed, drawing annoyed looks from many of the shop's customers, "If you don't stop going on at me, I'll bat bogey you!" Pansy quirked an eyebrow; so the girl had spirit. Mind, she was a Gryffindor, Pansy mused, even being a lowly Weasley couldn't quite cancel that out.

And then Ginny shook her hair out of her face and Pansy saw it; a rust orange feather hanging from the little Weasley's ear. It oozed power, that Pansy was certain of, but what power this was, she was not certain. Pansy had been surrounded by power her entire life, and so she was very familiar with the feeling of it. She knew, for instance, that dark magic felt like oil sliding over her skin, calling to something inside of her, the part of her being that refused to adhere to civilisation, the part that only followed her own rules, few as they were. And she knew that light magic felt of innocence; it drew up memories of early childhood and love and made her feel safe and secure. She supposed that they felt different to each individual, much in the way that Amortentia did. But this earring... it had a power that she didn't know, had never felt before.

Well, until now. It was not light or dark magic, she knew that much. It felt... old. Old and wild and untamed. It also, Pansy paused, trying to put into thoughts what she was feeling until, yes, it also felt of nature.

"Interesting," she whispered, drawing away from the shelves and off towards a different section of the shop. This would need research.

* * *

><p>"I will <em>not <em>have my only daughter walking around looking like a... like a... scarlet woman!" Molly shrieked. Ginny shrunk lower into her chair, hoping that her lack of argument would calm her mother as it usually did. She did not, however, seem to be in any luck, as Molly seemed to take this as a sign that she should go on. "Take it out immediately," she demanded, hands on her hips.

"Bill has an earring though," Ginny mumbled, wondering why she felt an odd, panicked fluttering in her stomach at the thought of removing the earring. Really, she thought, if she were to be rational about it, she should have taken it out as soon as she could, lest it be some kind of dark object. Tom Riddle's diary popped into her head and she blanched slightly. Ignoring the voice in the back of her head that told her that this was nothing like the diary, she put her hand to her earlobe and pulled the earring, not even trying to listen to her mother's tirade about Bill's choice of body jewellery.

She winced as the metal pulled against the raw hole in her ear, causing a new trickle of blood to seep down her neck. But the earring wouldn't come out. She frowned, a tiny crease appearing between her eyes, and tried again. But to no avail. It wouldn't even move; there was a slight pull and then just... nothing.

"Shit," Ginny swore, giving the earring a big yank.

"Ginevra Weasley! What has gotten into you lately! Oh, you are going to be doing so many chores this holiday, missy! And if you don't take that earring out of your ear this minute, you won't even be leaving your room until it's time for you to go back to school." Ginny closed her eyes against her mother's ranting, and concentrated on trying to calm the feelings bouncing around her mind. On one hand, she was panicking, a _lot. _An earring, which could possibly be choc-a-bloc full of dark magic was stuck in her ear. On the other hand, it felt familiar, as though it had always and should always be there. She had the strangest feeling that she didn't even _want _to take it out. Of course, this was not helping her panicking side.

"Mum," she said in a voice of forced calm, "I can't get it out."

* * *

><p>"Two stirs clockwise, three fifths of a stir anti-clockwise," Snape muttered to himself, wiping sweat off of his brow before it could drop into the cauldron and ruin three days of work. He followed the last two instructions and, to his great relief, the potion turned emerald green.<p>

"Thank fuck for that," he said under his breath, rummaging through the bags Wormtail had brought him for a crystal vial. It was the only item he had actually needed for the potion from the list he had given the rat, but he figured that he should make the most of having a servant whilst he could, and had stocked up on everything he would need throughout the school year. Of course, the fact that it kept Wormtail busy and out of the house whilst he was brewing was merely a bonus.

Duplicating the vial, he quickly bottled two samples; one to send to each of his masters. Hopefully Dumbledore would be able to find out what the potion did, because so far Severus only had guesses. The recipe had been handwritten by the Dark Lord, and for all Severus knew the snake had invented it himself as well. If that was the case then they would probably not know what it did until the Dark Lord used it. And that would be a bit too late.

From looking at the ingredients, Snape thought that it had something to do with raising something, though he had no idea what.

"Inferi, perhaps? A mass amount?" he mused. Shaking his head in frustration, he grabbed both of the vials and left his lab for the first time in days. Whatever the potion did, it was nothing good.

* * *

><p>Arthur could hardly believe it when he felt the power rolling off of his only daughter when he walked through the door that evening. He recognised it at once, of course. He had grown up on stories of the thunderbirds, in particular the one in his family tree. But <em>why <em>was the mark of a thunderbird on his daughter?

"Ginny..." He started, stepping into the kitchen proper and reaching a hand out to her, "What has happened?"

"She's gone and gotten her ear pierced, that's what happened!" Arthur jumped at the sounds of his wife's voice, he hadn't even realised that anyone else was in the room, fixated as he was on the power surrounding Ginny. The room was actually fairly full of people; Ron and Percy sat at the table, Molly stood by the sink, directing the washing up into the cupboards with her wand and Harry stood in the doorway which led to the rest of the house, his unwavering gaze fixed on Ginny. Harry, at least, could feel what Arthur could, though he probably had no idea what it was that he was feeling.

"Your ear pierced, Ginny?" Arthur inquired, trying with all his might to keep his voice even.

"I didn't _ask _to get it pierced," Ginny burst out furiously. Arthur got the feeling that she had been having this argument all afternoon. "That stupid old crone stabbed this thing through my ear lobe! It was hardly my choice." She turned around to face her father fully and Arthur was hard pressed to contain a gasp. A single, rust-orange feather hung from her ear, pouring wild, thunderbird power all over his little girl.

"Ginny..." he murmured, frozen with shock. He staggered to the table and sat down, not even noticing when his wife began to rant again. Arthur put his head in his hands and blocked it all out, trying with all his might to dredge up the stories his father had told him. The thunderbirds were ancient, he knew that much. The one in his family tree was thousands of years ago, so long ago that he had all but been forgotten. He was a myth now, a family story to explain their red hair.

"Dad? Dad, are you alright? I'm sorry, okay? Dad?" Ginny's voice snapped Arthur out of his thoughts, and he raised his head to find himself staring into the eyes of his daughter.

"Yes, sorry sweetie, I was miles away," he apologised, trying for a smile, "Molly, let's just leave it this once. Ginny's sorry, and if what she says is true then she didn't mean for any of this to happen." Molly scowled at her husband but acquiesced, nodding her head once before turning back to her housework. "I'm going to go and freshen up and get changed before dinner," he added, standing up from the table. He left the room and headed for the attic, sure that he had some old family things up there somewhere that might be able to shed some light on this situation. He just prayed the ghoul hadn't eaten them.


	3. THREE

A/N: Thank you to those of you who have story alerted/favourited/reviewed. I'd like to request any constructive criticism you can give me, because I'm trying to up the ante on my actual writing in this story, which is hard to do if I don't know what I'm doing wrong/ could be doing better. So any help with that would be greatly appreciated :)

Enjoy!

* * *

><p><span>THREE<span>

Ginny sighed happily as she leant her forehead against the window of the Hogwart's express. She rocked slightly as the train sped down the tracks, and sunlight flickered red on her closed eyelids as it flashed through the trees outside. _Finally. _Finally she was away from her mother's constant demands and chores and scolding, finally she was going back to Hogwarts, to some semblance of freedom.

"Ginny!" The girl in question groaned as her brother's voice sailed from down the corridor into her open compartment door. She scrunched her eyes shut a bit more, hoping childishly that if she couldn't see him, then he couldn't see her. Unsurprisingly, life didn't work that way and Ron stopped outside the door, Harry and Hermione in tow.

"There you are, didn't you hear me calling you?" Ginny cracked her eyes open and squinted past where Luna was sitting (with her head stuck in the latest copy of the Quibbler, ignoring them all) to the tall, lanky form of her second least favourite brother in the doorway. It wasn't that she disliked Ron, it was just that she liked her other brothers (bar Percy) much better. She supposed it was because they were further away from her in age, and she hadn't had to suffer through years of their company at Hogwarts. And they were less annoying. There was that, too.

"Hi Ron," she said reluctantly, "What is it?"

"Me and Hermione have to go do rounds. Just checking you'd found a compartment," he answered, and Ginny's heart almost warmed to him until; "And don't go near any of the Slytherins. And don't let them in here. You know they'll be happy to hex you, especially these days." She rolled her eyes.

"Why would a Slytherin bother coming in here?" she asked, but Ron had already gone, stomping off down the corridor with Hermione.

"You don't mind if I sit in here, do you?" Harry asked, left hovering in the doorway with his trunk by the others. Ginny smiled at him warmly, he and her father were the only ones who hadn't gone crazy about this earring thing. Well, and the twins of course, but even they were worried.

"Go for it. Might attract some scary Slytherins though," she joked.

* * *

><p><em>Damn,<em> Pansy cursed inwardly as she spied from her spot in the corridor, disillusioned against the wall, on the compartment that the youngest Weasley was sat in. She had, somewhat foolishly, perhaps, hoped that the girl would be alone or with some of her year mates. Pansy hadn't counted on The Boy Who Lived himself to be sat across from her. There was that freak from Ravenclaw there as well, the one that had gone to the ministry with them at the end of fifth year, but she was no bother; what would Loony do? Throw those radish earrings at her? Not bloody likely.

But Potter, now Potter was a problem. There was no way she was making her proposition in front of the golden boy, but it was equally impossible that he would ever allow Ginny to talk with Pansy alone. She needed to get rid of him, but how?

"Harry?" Pansy's head whipped back to the doorway of their compartment, where a second year Gryffindor boy was now standing nervously. "I was told to give you this." The boy held out a scroll of parchment which Harry accepted before backing out again and sliding the door closed. Pansy watched Ginny look on curiously as Harry read the message. He frowned and said a few words to the red-head before standing, saying good-bye to both the girls in the compartment and leaving. _Yes. _

She held her breath as Potter walked past her and counted to ten, waiting until he was out of sight down the corridor before taking off the disillusionment charm and striding up to the compartment door. Confidence. Confidence was the key here.

* * *

><p>Ginny looked up as the door slid open less than a minute after Harry had left, expecting to see him back, having left his wand or glasses or some other important item. Although not as bad as Neville, Harry did have a tendency to be a bit forgetful at times. Ginny chalked it up to his mind constantly being too busy fretting about Voldemort and other such life-threatening things to worry about the everyday stuff.<p>

But it wasn't Harry. Pansy Parkinson stood in the doorway, her wand in one hand and a slight smile on her lips. She hadn't yet changed into her school robes and was wearing a green silk vest top with a black pencil skirt and heels. Ginny snorted aloud; she looked like a slutty secretary, though the Gryffindor supposed that the older girl had been going for classy. It was the exact opposite of Ginny's own clothes; jeans and an old baggy tee that had once belonged to Bill.

"Hello Pansy," Luna said, startling the older girl slightly before she pulled herself together and sneered down at the blonde.

"Fuck off, Loony," Pansy spat. Ginny narrowed her eyes and reached behind her ear for her wand. She had taken to keeping it tucked behind the ear with the earring; somehow it seemed to calm the strange effects she had been feeling since that day in Diagon Alley.

"You shouldn't keep that there," Pansy said, eyeing Ginny in a way that made her feel strangely vulnerable.

"What do you want, Parkinson?" The older girl raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow and took the seat opposite Ginny.

"I want to defect. I want to join the winning side of this war. I want to join _your_ side."

* * *

><p>"Severusss, I trust you have completed your task by now?" The hiss came from a hooded figure, slouched in a large, gilded chair at the head of the room. Severus himself was knelt in front of his master, legilimancy shields at full power as he tried to hide his disgust for the creature before him.<p>

"My lord, it is done," he said subserviently, extracting a vial from his robes, "I have brought a sample for my lord's inspection, and can retrieve the rest whenever my lord wishes." The hooded figure snapped his long, pale fingers once and Peter Pettigrew scurried forwards from where he had been hiding at the edge of the room, took the vial from Severus' hand and gave it to his master.

Voldemort held it between his forefinger and his thumb and peered at it, his eyes glowing red from beneath his hood.

"Very good, Severuss," he hissed, waving Pettigrew away, "Now return to Hogwarts. You wouldn't want to miss the sorting feast now, would you?"

* * *

><p>Ginny's friends were slightly concerned. She had barely spoken a word to them yet, simply sitting and walking and eating automatically while a small frown sat on her forehead and ideas and concerns whirred around in her brain. She had glanced up briefly when Harry Potter had walked into the hall covered in blood, but even that was not enough to completely lift her out of her own thoughts.<p>

For a girl who was usually bright and bubbly and happy, if a little shy, this was odd and yes, slightly concerning. Her friends knew not to bother her though, knew not to ask what was wrong, and knew that if they did they would likely be on the receiving end of a bat bogey hex. And so it remained that Luna was the only one, other than Pansy of course, who had the slightest clue what was going through the red-head's mind at that moment. And Luna wasn't talking.

So Ginny was left in peace with her thoughts. And what strange and exciting thoughts they were. The trade Pansy Parkinson had offered her was very tempting indeed, and she was not sure that she could say no to it. She was not sure if she _should _say no to it. Information for a place on the winning side. No, not the winning side; Ginny's side. Up until that moment, Ginny Weasley had been unaware that she even _had _a side in the war. Let alone one that was so promising that even one of the most cunning Slytherin girls would wish a place on it. Was it worth taking on that responsibility just to get information about her... condition? If it even was a condition, or if indeed her condition was any different to before the earring ceased being merely an earring in a shop and began whispering to her blood.

Lost as she was in her thoughts, she failed to notice the figure in front of her until she had walked straight into it.

"Miss Weasley, if you do not want to lose points before lessons even begin, I would suggest you watch where you walk in future," a familiar voice sneered at her. She looked up to see the scowling face of the potions master glaring down at her, his empty black eyes boring holes in her head. Then the eyes flickered sideways and widened in shock. Ginny's frown deepened, and she reflectively brought up a hand to her ear, tucking her earring, the evidence of her change, away in the folds of her hair. But it was too late and Snape had already seen it. He reached out one long-fingered hand before she could move and grabbed her chin, forcing her face round to look at him. His deep, black eyes stared into hers.

"Legilimens," he whispered, and she felt a strange push in her mind. It was only for a second, however, and then the flashes of lightning began, accompanied by booming rumbles of thunder. She forgot about Snape, about the fingers clutching her chin and the interrogation she was facing and threw herself head first into the storm in her mind, laughing gleefully as rain dashed across her skin and thunder and lightning destroyed the use of her senses. It was one thing to stand underneath a storm, but quite another to fling oneself straight into the centre of one.

Too soon, however, the rain began to wane, and the storm retreated, depositing Ginny back into her body on its way out. She opened her eyes to find her professor staring at her in shock, his face paler than usual. Slightly hysterical laughter was echoing around the corridor and it took Ginny a minute to realise that the sound was coming from her own mouth. She hastily shut it, watching Snape warily, wondering whether he was about to give her detention for a few months (or possibly something worse, but she didn't want to think of being on the receiving end of some of her professor's hexes). She needn't have worried however, as he turned and swept away from her without another word. On a normal day, this would have been a cause of joy for the youngest Weasley, but she found herself panicking instead, her breath coming in irregular pants and her hands beginning to shake slightly; this was just one thing too far for Ginny. She needed to know what was happening to her, and she needed to know now.

* * *

><p>Pansy Parkinson smiled down at the note in her hand as she idly petted the owl that had brought it to her. She had hoped the Weasley girl would accept, hoped that nobody else had bothered telling her what was happening to her. If anyone else even knew, that was.<p>

"Letters at this time of night?" Draco drawled from his seat by the fire, "What's so important that it couldn't wait until morning?" Pansy smiled, sickle sweet and simpering as she let the owl out the window and walked over to where Draco sat, surrounded by a group of admirers. She perched herself on the arm of his chair and ran a hand through his hair. She giggled when he wound an arm around her waist, his fingers expertly finding the gap between her shirt and her skirt and working their way up under her top to rest on her ribs.

"It's a surprise, Draco," she said, leaning down to plant a kiss on the side of his mouth before hopping up and grabbing her bag. She was halfway to the exit before he called to her.

"Wait, where are you going? It's after curfew." Pansy smiled coyly, not stopping, but turning her head back to speak to him.

"I told you, Drakey, it's a surprise," she shot a wink at him and left the common room, the smile melting off of her face as soon as she was out of sight. Soon, soon she wouldn't have to deal with idiots like him, idiots who thought that having good family and breeding and a lot of money was the same as having _power_. For Slytherins, they could all be rather dense at times. They wouldn't see true power if it hit them in the arse, despite being raised surrounded by it, just as she had been. The amount of cunning they possessed between them wouldn't fill a tea cup, and yet she was forced to play nice, to act the pure blood daughter and pretend that she was no threat to them.

It was always the worst on the first week of school; she had had an entire summer away from them all, in her own home where she could excel and plan and plot all she liked, without having to worry about who could see her, about who would get suspicious about her behaviour.

Draco would be getting a surprise alright, when the war came proper and she wasn't by his side.

* * *

><p>It was 10 o'clock and Ginny stood in the shadows by the entrance of the library, clutching a worn out piece of parchment in front of her. She had 'borrowed' the Marauder's map from Harry for this excursion, and a quick check of it a minute before had confirmed that Pansy was already in the library, exactly where Ginny had told her to be.<p>

But now that she was here, Ginny was having second thoughts. What if Pansy's offer of information had been a lie? What if this was some ploy to get a spy into the light side? What if it was an ambush? And so she hesitated, undecided, by the entrance, staring at Pansy's dot on the map.

"Logically," she whispered to herself, "Think about it logically. If it was an ambush, they'd need more people, and there's nobody else around. And she never said she wanted to join the light side, just that she wanted to join _my _side. And my side has no information because nobody tells me anything. And if the offer was a lie, then I'll just have to find out the information for myself." She nodded, Gryffindor courage regained, before letting out a tiny giggle. If she wasn't crazy before, then talking to herself was a sure sign that she was going that way.

Quickly, she pushed the now folded Marauder's map into her bra (usually, she despised girl's who kept things in their bra, but if, however unlikely it seemed, this was an ambush, her bra was probably the last place Pansy would look) and slipped silently into the library, working her way past the shelves to the very back, where she found the older Slytherin girl, but not as she was expecting to.

She had expected Pansy to be sat, straight backed and rigid, in full school robes at one of the tables, a glare on her face as she waited for Ginny. But the sight she got instead was something entirely different. The contents of her bag were strewn across a table, but Pansy herself was browsing the nearby bookshelves, occasionally pulling something out when it caught her eye. She was clad only in her Slytherin skirt and an untucked shirt, no tie, no robe and no shoes.

There was something strangely intimate about watching Pansy pad around barefoot, something that had Ginny yearning for the comfort of The Burrow and her family. She shuddered as she realised what she was thinking; it unnerved Ginny more than her newly acquired accessory, the encounter with Snape and the threat of Voldemort combined; to consider Pansy Parkinson and the comfort of home was strange and terrifying and she did her very best to cast it out of her mind at once. It would not do to go into a meeting with a Slytherin already unnerved and out of sorts, no more than she already was, anyway. She would be eaten alive if she did.

"Are you planning on lurking all night, or are you waiting for the Death Eaters I have hiding behind the shelves to come out and attack you?" Ginny jumped slightly at the words, immediately cursing herself for allowing Pansy to get the upper hand in the meeting already.

"You don't have Death Eaters behind the shelves. The only other people out of their common rooms or offices are Filch and Snape. And Filch is in the Astronomy tower, and Snape is in Dumbledore's office." Ginny smirked as Pansy turned around to look at her as she sat down at the table.

"And how, exactly, are you so certain? Thunderbirds don't have any instinctive knowledge of other people's whereabouts that I know of."

"That, Parkinson, would be telling." Pansy raised her eyebrows but let it go, padding across the library floor to sit down opposite Ginny.

"You know, honey," the older girl began, a mocking smile on her face, "If you're here, as I think you are, to agree to my deal, then you really should start calling me by my first name. Unless you want to come with an idiotic name for your followers like The Lightning Bugs or something." Ginny pursed her lips and frowned.

"I'm not here for you to take the piss. I'm here for you to tell me what you know. So get talking, _Pansy._ What is a Thunderbird?"


	4. FOUR

A/N: The Thunderbird information is based on old native american myths, although I elaborated a bit and completely made up the creation story. I'd be interested to hear what you think of it, to be honest, to see if it makes sense or needs editing.

And without further ado, here's the chapter. Enjoy.

FOUR

"First thing you need to know is that Thunderbirds are old," Pansy began, leaning her chin in intertwined fingers and levelling Ginny with a look that Professor McGonagall would have been proud of. It was the sort of look that usually only teachers had, the sort of look that promised severe punishment if you did not hang on their every word. It was the sort of look that promised a test the next lesson.

"And I don't mean just sort of old, like Quidditch or Merlin or some shit. I mean _old, _as in, before muggles, before witches and wizards, before everything that we know today. Thunderbirds were one of the first conscious creatures to come into being. You know, of course, that Life and Death created everything that we have today? Life created the sun and the plants and the earth, Death created the moon, the weather and magic?" Ginny levelled the older girl with a glare.

"Just because I wasn't raised to be a rich snob, doesn't mean I'm any less a pure-blood than you are. I _know _this stuff." Pansy arched an eyebrow and shifted in her seat, sitting higher in her chair as though she was attempting to re-establish her superiority over the younger girl.

"Of course," she answered neutrally, "Well, what most don't realise is that magic and along with it, all conscious life forms were never meant to be created. We are a side effect. And the Thunderbirds were one of the triggers, in a way. You see, when Death created the weather, he made a mistake. He gave it too much power. You can't create that much power, that much energy, and not attach some sort of consciousness to it. So, the power made its own consciousness and it was magic. The sun and the snow made light magic, and light wizards and witches, the rain and wind and clouds made dark magic, and so made dark witches and wizards, and the storms created Thunderbirds."

"Woah, wait a minute. Slow down. We are all made out of the weather? How does that even work? And where did muggles come from then, if we were all made because of magic? How can weather even _make _us like that?"

"Merlin, girl, listen, would you?" Pansy snapped, "We aren't made out of the _weather, _we are made out of the _power _that Death gave it! The power overwhelmed itself, and so had to turn some of itself into magic to survive. And we were channelled out of that magic. _Muggles _were created from the power, before it turned itself into magic. They were granted consciousness, but not magic. And the same applies with animals; the ones with magic were created slightly later, when the power had realised that simply channelling itself into consciousness wasn't working. Understand?" Ginny nodded slowly, trying to wrap her brain around the concept. She had never really thought much on how they had come into being before; like most witches and wizards, she had simply accepted the creation story of Life and Death and carried on with her life.

"Okay. So Death created the weather, but gave it to much power. Too much energy, right?" Pansy nodded none too patiently, so Ginny continued. "So then the power had to channel itself into something to survive. What would have happened if it hadn't?"

"The world would have exploded and Life and Death would have had to start all over again."

"Right. Whatever. So the power began creating conscious beings, but that wasn't helping enough. So it gave some humans and animals extra energy, and made them magical. And the different forms of weather gave these magical beings different types of magic, right? So the ones made from the power of the sun became light wizards, and the ones made from the power of the rain became dark wizards? Except rain doesn't seem very dark," Ginny wrinkled her nose in thought, "Surely the dark wizards should have been made from like, tornadoes, or storms or something." Pansy snorted delicately, unable to hide her amusement.

"Even for a Gryffindor, you're a little bit dim sometimes, you know?" she asked, a smirk on her lips. Ginny bristled, suddenly very conscious of her wand tucked behind her ear.

"Look," she snapped, "It's the middle of the night, I've had a long fucking day, I'm probably going to be expelled for attacking Snape and I don't need you being a bitch to top it all off. Just tell me what I need to know. Tell me what the fuck I am, and stop rambling about magic and creation and the _fucking weather_!" She was standing by the time she had finished, breathing heavily with her hair drifting about her head in a fiery halo as static filled the air of the library. The books on nearby shelves began to tremble and a quiet growl of thunder echoed through the room. She was glaring at Pansy, her eyes no longer those of Ginny Weasley; the comfortable brown was fading out into a milky white, confirming Pansy's suspicions. The girl was further along than she had expected, and damage control was required. Even if it did mean being nice.

"Calm down," Pansy murmured, "Calm down, sweetie. Come back to me. You need to control it for now. You need to hear me out. Just calm down, come on." Slowly, the tension left the younger girl's body and her hair fell back down around her shoulders as she sat back down. When she looked back at Pansy her eyes were once again a pretty brown colour, though their attractiveness was ruined by the tears welling up in them.

"I'm scared," she whispered and Pansy was caught between hugging the girl in front of her and sneering at the display of weakness. She was joining this side for power, not to comfort scared children.

"Good. If you're scared it means you can fight against it, at least for a while. Thunderbirds were made out of the storms, Ginny. Death put the most power into his storms, loving their primal energy and the destruction they caused. And most of that power went into the thunderbirds. The rest of the weather, it took a little while, maybe a year or two, before its own power threatened to overwhelm it. But the storms... Death should never have given anything that much power. It took only 5 days and 5 nights, the stories say, for the first Thunderbird to be created." Ginny nodded dumbly, unable to process the thought that that much power now resided in her body. She did, however, begin to understand why Pansy had come to her to join her side in the war.

"Okay. But what _is _a Thunderbird?" Pansy reached into her bag, pulling out a large, old, mouldy book. She flicked quickly through the pages, ignoring the fact that the action threw a small cloud of dust into the air.

"This. This is a Thunderbird." She slid the open book over to Ginny. On the page was an ancient drawing of an enormous bird with feathers of red, orange, grey, black and a startling white. Though the colours were faded, it was obvious that they were supposed to be vibrant. Two curled horns sat proudly on its head and a row of dangerous looking teeth lined its beak. The writing around the picture was in some ancient, foreign language that Ginny couldn't understand.

"So... The feather on my earring, that came from one of these birds, right? And that's why I keep on... I don't know, calling up storms?"

"No, it's so much more than that! If it worked that way, then anybody could wear that earring and command the power. No, you have to be _related _to a Thunderbird. Somewhere, probably hundreds of generations back in your family tree, there was a Thunderbird. And that blood has been passed down through your family, skipping generations when it has found nobody worthy, and gifting those who it does find worthy. Like it has to you." Pansy leant forward, trying to open Ginny's eyes to the wonderful, dangerous, powerful gift she had been presented with. But, alas, it had been a long day and there was only one part of Pansy's speech which managed to make itself heard.

"So somebody in my family had sex with a giant, magical bird? Is that what you're saying?" Ginny asked, unable to tear her eyes away from the illustration in the book. There was something about it that drew her to it; she barely heard what Pansy was saying, so entranced was she by the drawing. She didn't even realise that the thunder was creeping up in the back of her mind again, a slight rumble followed by the pattering of rain. It was only the flash of lightning that snapped her out of it.

"Ginny!" Pansy's voice was insistent, and Ginny had the nagging feeling that the older girl had been trying to get her attention for a while now.

"What?"

"You have to fight it, for fuck's sake! You need to learn to control yourself before you give in to it, otherwise it'll just overwhelm you, and I don't know what would happen then."

"How do you know it'll be a bad thing then, if you don't know what'll happen?" Ginny asked petulantly.

"Oh, I'm fucking sorry," Pansy snapped, "I forgot that giving up control to an unknown, addictive power always ended up in sunshine and rainbows." Ginny bristled at the sarcasm, but stayed silent on the matter, a scowl on her face the only indication to her displeasure.

"Whatever. So, back to my ancestor fucking a big-ass bird." Pansy raised an eyebrow in amusement; the youngest Weasley could definitely be vulgar when she wanted to. Though her pure-blood breeding urged against it, Pansy found herself warming ever so slightly to the girl because of it. It showed personality and spirit, and confirmed than Pansy had made the right choice. This could be done.

"They didn't, not really. The Thunderbirds have a human form, of sorts. Legend says that they had the ability to tip back their beak, revealing a human face underneath. Not sure what happened to their body, but I'm guessing something similar happened- they plucked their feathers or something and underneath it all they had a human body. The books aren't really clear on that bit. Well, they aren't really clear on anything, to be honest." Ginny smiled a bit at the exasperation on Pansy's face, feeling a tiny bit grateful that the Slytherin girl had done the research for her. Studying and spending copious amounts of time in the library was more Hermione's thing than Ginny's.

"Ok. So one of my ancestors had sex with a Thunderbird in its human form, therefore passing down its blood until that blood found me?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Hey, is that why we're all ginger?"

* * *

><p>"So you will do nothing about it?" Professor Snape snarled across the desk at the man who was, usually, his most trusted friend and advisor. He was also, at times, his boss, his superior and his master. This was one of the latter times, unfortunately.<p>

"I see nothing that I can do, without putting Miss Weasley in a large amount of danger. Is one student's life being constantly threatened not enough for you, Severus?" Dumbledore's tone was calm, more suited to discussing the weather over a cup of tea than to their current conversation, and it only served to incense Snape further. _One _student's life was constantly in danger? Had Albus forgotten Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle and who knew how many others of his Slytherins who were under ever-increasing pressure to join a lifestyle that almost always led to early death at best, and life-imprisonment at worst. He didn't voice any of this though, merely seething silently and vowing to take his anger out on Dumbledore's favourite students at the earliest convenience.

"Will you at least tell me what happened, then? As I will obviously not be finding out from Miss Weasley's mind. What is this power she has? Can we use it against the Dark Lord? Is she dangerous, to herself, to her classmates? Tell me _something, _Albus!"

"No," the old man continued, as though Snape's outburst had never happened, "I believe it is best left in Miss Weasley's hands. I think she is more than capable of dealing with her new-found inheritance. Now, how is young Mister Malfoy holding up?"

* * *

><p>"Malfoy," the guard at the door snarled through his silver mask. Draco sneered, almost successful in removing all traces of fear from his face.<p>

"MacNair," he greeted coolly, "Let me through, I have business with the Dark Lord, and not much time before I am missed at school."

"Of course," MacNair answered, stepping aside, "After all, who am I to disallow you entrance to your own home?" Draco swept past the Death Eater, ignoring the cruel laugh that followed him down the hallway. He was nervous and fidgety as he approached the doors to the ballroom, but he did his best to school his features into a calm facade. It was strange to him, still, that he feared going into certain rooms in his own house. These were the rooms he grew up in, played with his friends in, ate dinner with his mother and father in. But now they were places of his nightmares, places of pain and humiliation. Taking a shaky breath, he knocked once on the door, a traitorous murmur in the back of his mind hoping that nobody heard his knock and he would be able to escape unnoticed. He had no such luck, however, as the doors swung open almost instantly.

"My Lord," he whispered, hurrying forward to kneel before his master.

"Draco," Voldemort greeted, managing to send shivers down the Malfoy heir's spine with a single word, "To what do I owe the... pleasure?"

"My Lord, I have half of what you asked us to retrieve," Draco said, pulling a vial filled with red liquid from his robes.

"Whose is it?" The Dark Lord sounded pleased, and Draco's confidence ratcheted up a few notches.

"Potter's. We have yet to get the Weasley girl's, but it will not be much longer. My Lord, I must go, before my absence is noted." It was a bold move, and one that, had he not just handed a vial of Potter's blood over, would have earned him a crucio at the least and an avada kedavra at the most. As it was, an indulgent smile stretched the thin lips of the Dark Lord as he looked down on his newest servant. Voldemort had never expected this one to work out half as well as he was, had marked him mostly for entertainment value, if he was honest. But he was pleased, nonetheless, pleased enough to be lenient, just this once.

"You wish to get back to your other task, no doubt. You may leave," Voldemort all but hissed. Draco, silently thanking Merlin, backed his way out of the room, almost unable to believe his own good luck- this was the first time he had gotten through a meeting with the Dark Lord without at least one _crucio_. Now all he had to do was find a way to the Weasley girl's blood, though he could, he supposed, leave that to the Dark Lord's other servants within Slytherin house, and find a way to sneak the Death Eater's into Hogwarts. And kill Dumbledore. There was that as well.

Shaking his head to clear it of any guilt he felt over his tasks, he stalked out of his childhood home, ignoring his mother and father as he passed them and apparated back to Hogsmeade, to begin the long trek up to the castle. He had work to do.

* * *

><p>Ginny's head was spinning. She had no idea how Pansy expected her to take in all of that information at once- she wasn't Hermione, for Merlin's sake. So distracted was she that she forgot to pull the invisibility cloak back over her head as she walked back to the common room that night. She lucky that Filch had already gone to bed for the night, or she would have been caught as soon as she set foot out of the library and it would have been a week's worth of detention for being out after curfew. As it was, she wasn't seen until she was only 50 yards away from her common room.<p>

The seventh year Slytherin prefect held his breath, creeping along the corridor behind her, going through a myriad of plans in his mind. Would it be easier to call out, in the guise of giving her detention? No, then she might run, and she would definitely see who he was. Send a silent stunner down the hallway? Simply sneak up and stab her? Before he could make his move though, she whispered something to a portrait which swung open just enough for her to slip inside.

"_Fuck,_" he muttered, pocketing his wand and storming back down the corridor towards the dungeons. Next time, he'd be sure not to hesitate.


	5. FIVE

A/N: Finally, the new chapter is up. Thank you to those who reviewed/favourited/subscribed or whatever :) And I hope you enjoy the chapter!

* * *

><p><span>FIVE<span>

"Flint, left," a brown haired boy with a prefect badge pinned to his robes hissed out of the side of his mouth. Flint obeyed without question, edging around a shelf of books, away from the rest of the group. There were five of them altogether, a mix of houses and genders but with one thing in common: the dark mark burned into their skin. The brown-haired prefect was in charge, having bullied his way into the position. _I've got her this time, _the prefect thought to himself, though he didn't dare speak out loud, _you won't escape me now, bitch. _

He and Flint were joined on their side of the corridor by a pretty little third year girl who knew some of the most vicious hexes of anyone in the school- including the teachers. Such a shame she was a Hufflepuff, and could only be used at moments like this. At the other end of the corridor were two Ravenclaw sixth years. Twins. Pretty, but not pretty enough to be distracting. It would not do to be distracted right now, however good the prospect of gorgeous, vicious twin sisters sounded. The Dark Lord's mission was far more important than silly teenage hormones.

"Masks," the prefect whispered into his collar. His mother had taught him, during the summer, a useful little spell to charm a button to relay speech to others with matching buttons. It had been one of many little 'lessons', which at first glance seemed harmless but were really intended to get him ready for after school. To get him ready for life with the Death Eaters.

They pulled their masks down over their faces, each of them grinning with anticipation as, after a hand gesture from the prefect, they all edged back into the shadows.

* * *

><p>Ginny sighed, head bowed over her Potions homework in the dark of the library at night. She had taken to spending more and more time there lately, rather than her usual haunts of the Gryffindor common room and the empty classroom on the fifth floor that she and Luna Lovegood had commandeered in their third year. It was partly for the peace and quiet, but mostly it was for the feeling of insignificance the place gave her. Shelves upon shelves upon shelves of history and heroic deeds and betrayal and brilliant discoveries and <em>magic. <em>Who was she compared to that? Just some fifth year girl with Thunderbird blood who one person thought could win a war. That was nothing compared to the stories the library contained, and Ginny loved it, finally thinking that she saw what attracted Hermione to spend so much time there.

Of course, it would be the one night that she had some very important Potions homework due the next day that her newfound inheritance decided to play up. It was like a toddler, vying for its mother's attention. She shook her head slightly, trying to clear it of the distant rolls of thunder, but was unsuccessful. It had been the same all evening. It was that same feeling that an impending storm gave her- that same thrill, that same excitement, but unlike natural storms, the ones inside her mind came with an added sense of impending doom. As though she were about to lose her mind.

"Fuck this," Ginny muttered, slamming her book closed. The sound echoed around the library and she stood stock still for a second, listening carefully for any sound of approaching footsteps or meowing cats. Hearing nothing, she breathed a sigh of relief and carried on shovelling her stuff back into her bag, though she was rather quieter about it now. Staying out after curfew had become something of a habit lately, seeming to go hand in hand with spending so much time amongst the shelves of books in the library. She hadn't been caught yet, though she had a few close run-ins with Mrs Norris. Thanks to Fred and George though, her knowledge of the school's secret passageways rivalled Harry's and she had managed to escape easily enough. Still, she shouldn't get cocky, she thought to herself as she crept down the corridors, sticking to the shadows. Her trip was eventless, however, and soon she found herself striding confidently out of the shadows to approach the Fat Lady, who was slumbering in her frame.

Ginny was inches from the portrait when she stopped, clutching her head in agony (or was it pleasure?) as thunder rumbled violently and lightning struck behind her eyes. Her wand was trembling, lodged behind her ear as always and she gasped for breath as she tried to hold on to the tiny amount of self control left in her body. How long she stood there was anybody's guess, but slowly she began to grasp onto those last shreds of control and keep them. Slowly, her mind was becoming her own again. That was when the reason for her thunderbird blood's anger made itself known, in the form of a glass wand stabbed straight into her side, up and under her ribs.

She lost control, and the Thunderbird was given free reign.

* * *

><p>Deep in the dungeons, oblivious to her ally's (she refused to call Ginny her master, even if that was what the red head was) problems, Pansy Parkinson sat in Draco Malfoy's lap, trying to ignore the rising feeling of nausea the blonde always caused. They were in a high backed armchair in front of the fire, into which Pansy's bare feet nearly fell, draped over the arm of the chair as they were. Draco was ignorant of this fact, however, more concerned with how many buttons of her shirt he could pop open without her noticing. Of course, the true figure was zero, though the blonde currently thought that his record for the night consisted of five- just enough to show almost all of her breasts without making it completely obvious that he was undressing her in front of the rest of their house.<p>

He really was the least subtle Slytherin in the entire school. Excepting Crabbe and Goyle, of course, and people always _do _seem to except those two.

"Draco, darling, what are you thinking about?" she simpered, ignoring the hand on her thigh. It was a small price to pay for the information she was after tonight, and Pansy was more than willing to pay that price. Slytherins may not be overtly, riotously brave like Gryffindors were, but that did not mean that they had no courage. It was just a better thought-out sort of courage.

"The plan, what else do I think of these days?" Draco smirked at his words, but the slight bitter chuckle gave him away. Pansy pretended that she hadn't heard it.

"You are so lucky, to have been chosen by the Dark Lord himself. I would give _anything _to have been awarded the honour..." Pansy trailed off, seeing the slight frown Draco now wore and wondering if she had pushed him too far. Going over her words in her head though, she knew that she had not said anything out of the ordinary. It was something else that had annoyed him. And if he was annoyed, then she wouldn't be getting anything out of him.

"Yes," Draco said in a clipped tone, "I am honoured indeed." Pansy smiled, shifting in his lap so that she was facing him properly. A side effect of this move was that her shirt stretched open just a little bit more, showing off her more than ample cleavage. Her smile widened as she saw Draco's eyes drift downwards.

"I'm getting rather tired, walk me to my dorm room?" she asked, stifling a laugh when his eyes lit up. Perhaps she would be getting that information after all.

"Mine's closer," he smirked, gray eyes darkening slightly with lust. She allowed a slight giggle this time as she took her time removing herself from his lap. Whispering started up as they left the common room together, mostly from girls jealous of Pansy's good luck, though some also came from boys laughing at Malfoy's good fortune. Pansy ignored them, holding her head high even as Draco came up behind her, placing one hand possessively on her hip, holding her to his side.

She had work to do, after all, and they wouldn't be laughing so much when Ginny won the war.

* * *

><p>Ginny woke up in the hospital wing the next morning. She opened her eyes blearily, only to snap them closed again as the early morning sunlight reflected from the white walls of the infirmary and threatened to blind her. As she lay there, eyes screwed shut and covers pulled up around her head, she took stock of her body. Two arms still and two legs as well, which meant that she probably still had a torso to hold them together. And the fact that the sunlight was still able to try and destroy her eyes proved that they were still intact. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that her entire body ached and she was in the hospital wing, she would be inclined to believe that she had imagined being attacked and stabbed the night before. Unfortunately, these two observations made it impossible to ignore.<p>

She had been stabbed. Fuck.

"Ah, Miss Weasley, you're awake," Madam Pomfrey said happily, bustling over to Ginny's bed. Ginny groaned a protest, but allowed the covers to be taken off of her head and opened her eyes. Madam Pomfrey was, like Ginny's mother, one of those people who was much easier to deal with if you just go along with whatever she says. Don't complain, don't argue back, and you'd be out of there in no time. Ginny had never shared this bit of wisdom with Harry, of course. It was too much fun watching him suffer.

"What happened?" Ginny asked. Or at least, she tried to- it came out more as a croak and then a rasp. Which wasn't exactly what she had been attempting to communicate.

"Here," Madam Pomfrey said, pushing a bottle of potion into the red-head's hand. "Drink this. You'll have to keep taking one of these every morning for the next week or two." Ginny nodded obligingly, chugging down the potion before the smell had time to make her gag. She followed it with a gulp or two of water that Madam Pomfrey helpfully passed along. See, if you're nice to her, she's nice back. Easy.

"Thank you," Ginny managed, this time with only a slight croak to her voice, "What happened?"

"That, Miss Weasley, was something that we were rather hoping that you could answer," Professor Snape all but snarled as he strode into the room. He was followed by the headmaster, who threw a disapproving look at Snape's back. Ginny giggled before she could stop herself, which unfortunately only served to make the Potions master more irate. Madam Pomfrey bustled off to her office, leaving Ginny to their mercy. "This is not a laughing matter, Miss Weasley. Four students are in St. Mungo's and another two are missing altogether. I will ask you once, and I will ask you once only. What. Did. You. Do. To. Them?"

"I didn't do anything!" Ginny exclaimed indignantly before memories of the night before began to slot back into place and she backpedalled a little, "Okay, so I might have done _something _but I didn't mean to, and it was self-defence! They stabbed me, for Merlin's sake!"

"And so you saw fit to throw three of them into walls and electrocute a third?" The headmaster's tone was mild, but Ginny could tell that she was in big trouble.

"I... I... I don't know," she finally admitted, "I don't remember much after they stabbed me."

"Yes, of course," Dumbledore nodded, eyeing her contemplatively. Ginny had a nasty feeling that she had just confirmed his suspicions about something. "The stabbing. Do you have any idea why they would do this, Miss Weasley? Why they would make you a target?"

Ginny thought, for a second, of telling him the truth. Of telling him about the old lady in the shop, the earring, the thunder and lightning constantly crashing around in her head, Pansy, everything. But then thunder rumbled warningly in her mind and she kept her mouth closed, shaking her head dumbly in answer. She was learning to trust her instincts, these days.

"I see," Dumbledore answered, his blue eyes showing that he knew more than he was letting on. He _always _knew more than he let on. "Well, we shall let you recover, Miss Weasley. You have a few friends waiting outside to visit you, and somebody from the auror department will be coming by soon to take your statement, and I'm sure your parents will pop by at some point this afternoon." With that, Dumbledore swept out of the room, and with a swirl of his robes and a glare in Ginny's direction, Snape followed him.

Ginny barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief before the doors opened again and her friends spilled into the room. Harry, Ron and Hermione were there, of course, as was Neville Longbottom. Colin Creevey followed them, with Luna Lovegood next to him. And then, behind everyone else, wearing another of her 'slutty secretary' outfits and a sneer on her face, came Pansy. The others were throwing odd looks back at her, some hostile, some merely curious.

"Ginny! Are you alright?"

"What happened?"

"We heard you got stabbed!"

"I heard you killed seven Slytherins!"

The questions came quick and thick and Ginny was still half asleep. And so she latched onto the most ridiculous question of the lot.

"Don't be ridiculous," she smiled, "They weren't even all Slytherins." This, predictably, set off another round of questions.

"What? You killed people?"

"Why did you kill them?"

"Are you going to Azkaban?"

Ginny rolled her eyes at her friends before turning to Pansy. The Slytherin was currently sitting imperiously in the only seat by Ginny's bed, her legs crossed and her chin resting on her interlaced fingers. She raised an eyebrow at the red head and flicked her eyes towards the mob on the other side of the bed. Ginny smiled and was about to answer when Ron cut in, having seen the gesture.

"What are you even doing here, Parkinson?" he snapped, "This has nothing to do with you."

"Au contraire, Mr Weasley, this has _everything _to do with me. More so, I would say, than it has to do with you. And so, if you would be so kind as to leave, I would be very grateful," Pansy purred. Ginny had to contain a snort of laughter when she saw Ron's eyes flick downwards from Pansy's face to her chest for a second before he caught himself. So much for Ron being gay for Harry then, Ginny mused, which was a shame really because they would have been a really cute couple.

"_Me _leave? I'm her brother! How do you even know her?" Ron face was going bright red, the universal sign for all Weasley's that they were going to need at least an hour or so to calm down after this fight. It wasn't a good sign. Pansy raised one perfect eyebrow at Ron before breaking eye contact and beginning to examine her nails. Ron went, if possible, even redder.

"I did not say this girl could have visitors!" Madam Pomfrey exclaimed, bustling back into the room. "She needs rest! She almost died last night, she does not need you all fighting around her. Out! Come on, out!" Ron scowled and opened his mouth to object but shut it again after a pointed look from Harry.

"See you later, Gin," Colin called as he traipsed out of the room along with the others. Ginny smiled. Colin might not be the coolest or most intelligent of friends, but he wasn't half sweet.

"And you, young lady," Madam Pomfrey snapped. Pansy hadn't moved from her seat, though she had changed her expression to one of concern.

"I promise I won't stop her from resting, Madam Pomfrey, I just think she could do with somebody to keep her company right now. After all, if I was attacked when I was alone, I wouldn't want to be left alone afterwards." It was the complete opposite of how Pansy had spoken to Ron, even of how she spoke to Ginny, and she was reminded again that the older girl was a Slytherin. Sneaky bitch.

The mediwitch's expression softened and she nodded her agreement.

"So long as you don't cause her any excitement," she scolded lightly. Ginny stifled a snigger, and could tell from the way Pansy's eyes lit up that she was struggling to contain her laughter as well.

"Oh, no, Madam, I won't excite her. I understand that she needs rest, not... strenuous activities." Madam Pomfrey smiled and nodded, going back into her office with a satisfied expression on her face.

Ginny giggled, and Pansy joined in for a second before turning serious again.

"The two who went missing," she began without preamble, "They were Slytherins. They came back to the common room last night, covered in blood and pretty beaten up. One of them was holding a sort of hollow glass wand, filled with blood. They called a meeting. I wasn't invited, of course. They see me as an air-headed bimbo- not worthy to serve their _lord. _They all holed themselves up in one of the dorm rooms for a while and then they came down and left, taking Draco and Goyle and Nott with them. About an hour later, Draco, Goyle and Nott came back, but the others didn't. I know what it was all about. They all had this mission, to get some of your and Potter's blood. That was why they attacked you. But now they have a new mission. He wants you, Ginny. He wants the Thunderbird, though I'm pretty sure he doesn't realise that that's what you are yet. He just wants the power you have. They're going to kidnap you."

* * *

><p>"They're going to kidnap you."<p>

Harry had to slap his hand over Ron's mouth to stop him from giving away their position. He had only just stopped himself from making a noise of anger himself, but he was well aware of what Ginny would do to them if she found them eavesdropping. Keeping the hand over Ron's mouth, he dragged him backwards out of the Hospital Wing and down a few corridors. When they were a decent distance away, he dropped his hand and pulled the invisibility cloak off them. They both stood staring at each other for a minute or two, minds reeling with what they had just overheard. Pansy was some sort of spy. Malfoy was a death eater. Ginny was a target, an important one. And-

"What the bloody hell is a Thunderbird?"


	6. SIX

A/N: Yes. Yes, this has been a long time coming. Yes, I am rubbish.

Onto other news, thank you very much to reviewers, especially the ones who put stupid grins on my face. You are excellent people.

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><p><span>SIX<span>

"Arthur, you cannot be serious." Molly Weasley's lower lip trembled as she spoke, worry creasing her forehead.

"I'm afraid that I am, Molly dear," her husband answered in a resigned manner. "I've already written her a letter, of course, but I thought I should let you add a bit to the end before I send it off." Molly nodded, her forehead creasing even further as she tried to imagine the right words to tell ones only daughter in a situation like this. Thunderbirds. Who even knew they existed?

They were sat at the kitchen table, as they always did for everything- from serious conversations to playful banter, full family meals to a cup of tea and a book. The sitting room in the Weasley household was rarely used, at least by the parents. That was the children's domain and this, the kitchen, was Molly's domain, which she was gracious enough to allow Arthur to use. Most of the time.

They sat in silence for a while, each contemplating the ways in which their beloved daughter's life was going to change. Molly was still trying to find the right words when, ten minutes later, a shining, silvery phoenix appeared in the room.

"Please come quickly. The Floo to my office is open," the phoenix said, though it used the headmaster's voice. Arthur had a split second's amusement at the deep, grandfatherly voice coming out of the bird's beak before he linked this summons to his and his wife's conversation. A glance at Molly's rapidly paling face told him that she too had made the connection. Without a word, they ran to the floo.

* * *

><p>Severus Snape growled and flung yet another useless book across his office. He felt a strange sense of satisfaction as it smashed into the door and fell to pieces. Of course, he didn't know that there was a first year on the other side of that door, about to knock and ask some rather ignorant and pointless questions and potions, life and girls but now too scared to do anything but run away. So Severus Snape just assumed that this satisfaction came from destroying the thing that had wasted the last two hours of his life.<p>

Of course, his fruitless search for any information about… well, _anything, _really was not the only source of annoyance. His confrontations with both the headmaster and the Weasley girl had done nothing but fan the flames of his ire.

"Fuck," he all but shouted suddenly, clutching his forearm in pain. If the first year had still been lingering outside the door in the vain hope that the Potions Master would answer his questions, if he could only get up the courage to knock on the door, his hopes would have been dashed.

Snape quickly flung a black cloak around his shoulders and grabbed his mask from the bottom drawer of his desk. Trust Voldemort to interrupt his research. As if he weren't having a bad enough day already.

* * *

><p>"So that's why I'm officially waging war on Lavender Brown," Colin finished his story decisively and Ginny blinked, confused. Her mind had been elsewhere, caught between the roar of thunder and the terror of being one of Voldemort's targets. It had most definitely not been listening to Colin's story, although, having now heard the conclusion, she was wondering if she ought to have been listening after all. If a war was being waged on Lavender Brown, then Ginny most definitely wanted in. Anything to distract her from brooding on her conversation with Pansy that morning.<p>

The Hospital Wing doors bashed open and Ginny winced as a plump, red-headed ball of worry flew towards her, a smaller, calmer red-headed ball of worry following close behind.

"Ginny, are you alright? How do you feel? We only just heard, and then we had to talk to the headmaster or we'd have been here sooner, oh I knew we'd been too lucky so far, you simply must come home-" Molly stopped talking abruptly as Arthur placed a calming hand on her shoulder. Colin threw a wry smile towards Ginny, the sort of smile that says 'have fun-I'm getting out of here while I can'. Ginny began to retract her wish to help him in his war against Lavender.

"I'd best be going," he said in his sweetest voice, smiling brightly at her parents, "It was nice to see you, Mr and Mrs Weasley." And with that he was gone. It was a good job that Ginny had years of experience at calming her frantic parents or she would have been shitting herself just then. Actually, even with that experience she was… well, you get the picture.

"Bye, Colin," Ginny called before turning to her mum and dad with a reassuring smile fixed firmly to her face. "I'm fine, honestly. I mean, I ache all over, but Madam Pomfrey fixed me up and I'm fine."

Her parents were not convinced. It may have been the wince as she sat upright in bed that did it, or it could have been Madam Pomfrey bustling over to feed Ginny more potions. It could have been mother's intuition or any number or other explanations. But whatever the cause, they were not buying her lie.

"Do not give us that line, Missy, now what on earth have you been getting yourself into now?" Molly snapped, going from worried to angry in roughly the space of two seconds. Arthur, as yet the silent partner in this good cop, bad cop routine, took a seat by the bedside and began staring at his daughter.

"What have _I _been getting myself into?" Ginny shrieked, earning herself a nasty look from Madam Pomfrey who was tending to another patient down the ward, "I was attacked! I didn't just walk up to them and go 'oh, hey, you know what would be really fun? You stabbing me!', did I?"

Molly squared her shoulders. Arthur sighed. Ginny had an angry conversation with the thunder in her head. There was silence for a moment, punctuated only by the mediwitches' scolding at the other end of the ward. And then Ginny finished (and won) her argument with the thunder and sighed.

"Listen, mum, I'm sorry. I just really don't know why they attacked me, I didn't do _anything _to provoke them and I didn't even know who they were until this morning. I can't remember what I did to them, but I do remember that they stabbed me before I did anything so it was all self defence and so really I haven't done anything wrong, but people keep coming in and yelling at me and I just… I just… I don't know what I did!" Ginny's voice was nigh-on hysterical at this point, a brilliant move on her part and one that caused the frown on Mrs Weasley's face to disappear.

"Oh, Ginny, don't worry sweetie. We'll take you home with us today and everything will be alright, how does that sound?" Ginny considered the offer. She thought of her own bed. No classes, no homework, no Snape! No people attacking her and nothing to set off the Thunderbird inside her. Well, apart from her mother that is. But then she thought of her friends and the library and meals in the Great Hall and that wonderful sense of _wellness _that she got from walking the halls of Hogwarts. And she thought of Pansy, Pansy who was now on her side, Pansy who was her ally. Pansy who was spying on her own classmates to try and help defeat Voldemort. In the end, there was really no question in Ginny's mind which she would rather choose. As much as she loved her parents (and she really did- adored them, in fact) she just could not go home with them and pretend that everything was fine. Because everything was not fine and she needed to face up to that. She was a Gryffindor, dammit.

"No. I can't. I won't run away from this. Besides, what about my classes? Now, with Voldemort back, they're more important than ever." Tears came to her mother's eyes, but her father simply carried on staring at her, a vaguely proud glint in his eye.

"In that case," he said, speaking for the first time, "We have some things that we need to tell you."

* * *

><p>"But I've looked <em>everywhere<em>," Hermioned complained, pouting a little. Ron shot a grin at Harry, who struggled to hide a snigger. They were in the Gryffindor common room, roasting their feet in front of the fire and discussing what Harry and Ron had overheard the day before. Hermione had spent all night in the library, searching through the stacks of books under Harry's invisibility cloak (although Harry wasn't privy to this particular piece of information, the cloak in question having been smuggled out of his bag when he was distracted by staring at Draco Malfoy. He did that a lot, these days. It was part of his 'Malfoy is a Death Eater and must be stopped' plan; step one: stare at him until he confesses), but she still hadn't managed to find a single reference to a Thunderbird. She had even looked through the restricted section with no luck.

Of course, you may be wondering how on earth one girl managed to read through the entire Hogwarts library in one night. And you would be right to wonder such a thing, but you would, of course, be forgetting that it was Hermione Granger's sixth year at Hogwarts. She had read through at least half the library in her first year alone. Why that girl wasn't in Ravenclaw, no-one really knew.

"And nowhere has even a single reference to a Thunderbird," she carried on. Unknown to her, Neville's ears perked up from the table behind her chair where he had been struggling with his latest potions essay. "I mean, maybe they don't exist, maybe that's why they aren't in the books."

"Thunderbirds do exist," Neville piped up. Three heads immediately swiveled around to face him and he quailed slightly under the force of their stares. "I mean, I don't know if they do anymore, but they definitely used to. They might just be too old for the books."

Hermione crinkled her forehead, a look of incomprehension on her face.

"Too… old for the books? But what could possibly be too old for the books?"

Neville glanced down at his potions essay and bit his lip. He really needed to get this done tonight, or Snape would have him in detention for the rest of the week. And he couldn't have detention for the rest of the week because he had Herbology club tomorrow evening and they were being shown how to prune Devil's Snare. Harry, Ron and Hermione had those looks on their faces though. Those looks that said that they would hound you mercilessly until you gave them the information they wanted. He sighed and put down his quill.

"I'll tell you if you help me out with this essay, Hermione. I have no idea what other uses for a bezoar there are, other than curing poisons." Hermione grinned, a big, blinding, toothy grin. You could tell her parents were dentists when she grinned like that. Neville winced, wishing that he had never spoken in the first place. No going back now though.

"Right, well you all know the creation story, right? About Life and Death creating…" He trailed off after noticing the confused looks on two of his audiences' faces. He sighed again. This was going to be a long evening.

* * *

><p>Pansy sighed. This was going to be a long evening. She was sat with Blaise, Draco and a few of the older Slytherins in a corner of the common room. The boys were playing Exploding Snap, of all things, whilst she was 'tutored' in Charms by a Seventh year girl with a nasty sneer and bushy eyebrows. As if <em>she <em>could teach Pansy _anything _about charms.

"See, you have to really _jab_ your wand," the girl growled and Pansy closed her eyes for a second. She counted down from five and forcefully removed the image of herself _jabbing _her wand in the older girl's eye from her brain. 5,4,3,2,1. She opened her eyes again and tried the spell. Of course, she could already do the spell- had been able to since third year, and that was what made this tutoring process all the more painful. Besides the fact that the only power this girl had resided in her ability to grow body hair in unfortunate places.

"I saw you with the Weasley girl the other day, Pansy," Blaise said quietly. Not quietly enough to stop the entire table hearing his words though, and all heads swiveled around to face Pansy. Had she been a Gryffindor or Hufflepuff, that would undoubtedly have been the end of her career as a spy. As it was, she was a Slytherin and so was all too used to fielding sly, probing questions. Blaise was the worst for it. He would wait until you were quite relaxed and then drop the bomb. Whether it was who you had slept with or who you had tortured, Blaise would know about it and he would maneuver you into a corner in which you couldn't help but give yourself up. He was a bastard and a perfect Slytherin.

She tried the spell again. It didn't work.

"Yes," Pansy twisted her face into a sneer and readjusted her top as she spoke, "McGonagall is making me tutor her for her potions OWL. Like the traitor is ever going to pass it anyway." She finished her sentence with a slight giggle, as if pleased with her own insult, and went back to trying the spell. It still didn't work, because the wand motion wasn't a _jab, _it was a _swish. _Sometimes Pansy thanked all that she believed in that her family wasn't as inbred as many of the other old families. At least she had escaped that particular obstacle.

"I didn't realize that you were all that good at potions," Draco commented idly, one eye on the sliver of cleavage that Pansy had revealed, the other on his cards. He was easy to distract. Far too easy.

"I'm not, I suppose. But I did well enough and Weasley is failing and Dumbledore is still trying to promote that house unity in times of war bullshit, so I've been lumped with the job." It was a testament to how little they thought of her intelligence that they were so easily fooled into believing the obvious lie. After all, Pansy might just about be clever enough to tutor a failing student, but to come up with a cover story that quickly? No way, you must be thinking of a different Parkinson.

Pansy sighed again as she felt Draco's fingers brush her leg. Yes. This was going to be a very long night.

* * *

><p>Ginny lay in her bed in the hospital wing. Her eyes were shut and her breathing was slow and steady and to all outside observers it would appear that she was asleep. But Ginny Weasley was anything but asleep, racing through the storms in her mind at lightning speed, jumping through cloud upon cloud, soaked to the skin by rain, shots of pure adrenaline pumping through her body. She felt so small and so powerful, so restless and so exhilarated and so <em>right. <em>She was born to do this, she was born to be this.

Lightning hit and her eyes flew open. The flickering light of the gas lamp by her bed was all she could see and the soft cotton sheets of her bed was all she could feel. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes before she could stop them.

She was _scared_, for fuck's sake. She was scared and confused and she hated all of this pressure to win a war that she hadn't even known she was a real part of until a few months ago. She wondered if this was what Harry felt like all the time. She wondered if she would ever learn to control her power, or if the point was that she couldn't control it. Perhaps she was to be used as a bomb: shut inside a room full of Death Eaters and allowed to explode. She wondered if she was okay with that. She wondered if Pansy knew what to do.

More than anything, she wondered if she would be able to resist the temptation to give up control for long enough to do anything worthwhile.

* * *

><p>Tom Riddle growled, pacing up and down the dining hall in a temper. The potion hadn't worked and he didn't have the girl. Or whatever the fuck she was. Reaching the head of the hall, he slumped into the throne-like chair and glared at the doorway, his red eyes glowing with such anger that it was a miracle he didn't burn a hole in the door. He kicked the mangled heap of blood, bones and skin at his feet. It looked like it could have been human once. But it wasn't now, wasn't anywhere near human because the <em>fucking potion hadn't fucking worked. <em>

Lord Voldemort was not used to failure. He didn't take to it well. It made him rather… testy.

There was a tiny knock at the door and he all but hissed '_Enter'. _He smiled for the first time that day when Draco Malfoy walked through the door, bowing and scraping like a slave.

"Draco…," Voldemort whispered happily, stretching the 'o' for all it was worth.

"My lord," Draco murmured, "You called for me?" He was trembling and trying not to look at the pile of human remains at his lord's feet.

"Yesss… unforeseen circumstances have caused me to change my plans, Draco, which means that you too must change yours. If Dumbledore is not dead by Christmas, I will kill your mother. January, your father. February? Well… I'll keep that one a secret for now. Tell my other servants at that school fo yours that they have a new mission. I want Potter and the Weasley girl, alive and whole and in front of me. Now get out." Draco jumped, eyes wide and fingers bloody from having clenched his fists so tightly that his nails pierced the palms of his hands. He began to scurry backwards out of the hall, desperate to get away from his master and his childhood home.

"Yes, my lord, of course, my lord," he murmured under his breath, praying to merlin that he reached the door before-

"Oh, and Draco… Crucio." Draco's scream ripped through the air, but it was not the cruciatus curse that haunted his dreams that night. It was the face he had seen at his lord's feet as he lay panting on the floor, aftershocks of pain attacking his body. It was a handsome face, or would have been, had it been for the red eyes, wide, still and staring and the flat, snake-like nose.


	7. SEVEN

A/N: yes. yes this did take a while. I sort of stopped writing anything at all for like, months. But I'm doing a creative writing module at uni in September, so I thought I should get back in the habit of writing more often. so with any luck, assuming I don't get too distracted, this will get finished sometime within the next few months. hang in there, guys :D

* * *

><p><span>SEVEN<span>

Ginny shivered. The sun was refusing to show its face today, though as it was Scotland in late November, she supposed she shouldn't be so surprised. Nevertheless, she had braved the weather simply to escape from the confines of the castle and the horrible, smothering concern of her friends and family. Being in Hogwarts meant that every little thing that happened was bound to be common knowledge by the next day and so the entire school knew about the attack, although the details had been widely exaggerated. Colin was still convinced that she had killed seven Slytherins, no matter how many times she tried to tell him otherwise.

She was sat on a large, flat stone by the lake when she felt someone approaching her from behind. The thunder in her head didn't react at all, and so Ginny knew that she was in no danger. It was a helpful sort of instinct to have, once one learned how to listen to it.

"Eurgh. I wish I'd known about your abysmal fashion sense before I pledged my allegiance to you."

Ginny smiled, a natural reaction to Pansy's voice, before she absorbed the words and looked down, frowning, at her outfit. Faded, baggy jeans two sizes too big held up with a leather belt and an old, threadbare grey t-shirt of Bill's with the words 'The Clash' scrawled across it. What 'The Clash' was Ginny didn't know, but she suspected that it was some sort of muggle sport. Perhaps with cars. They clashed, sometimes, right? Or was it crashed? She wasn't sure.

"I wonder if anybody's ever said that to Voldemort," Ginny mused out loud, smiling again, all offence forgotten. Pansy grinned.

"I don't know about Voldemort, but somebody must have said it to Dumbledore," she said with a fake sneer. Ginny laughed, finally turning to face her friend. As she had suspected, Pansy was incapable of dressing down and was wearing tight, tailored black trousers and a sheer black blouse underneath a velvet emerald green cloak. Did she never relax?

"Sit down," Ginny said, "Or are you scared of getting your outfit grubby?" Pansy rolled her eyes and sat, tucking her legs beneath her.

"I want you to start meditating," Pansy said brusquely as soon as she was comfortable, all traces of humour gone. Ginny almost argued; all the things she would have said two months ago went through her mind: 'No, I haven't got time, it's boring and pointless, you aren't my mother and can't tell me what to do, I have better things to spend my time on, will it cut into my Quidditch training?' But all she said was:

"Okay." Because she was scared, now, and willing to try anything to get control of herself. Even if that involved listening to Pansy's advice. It was somewhat startling to realize how much she had matured over the past few months. War and the overwhelming pressure to do something about it could do that to a person, she supposed. She wondered why Harry didn't act like an old man, the amount of pressure he had on him. She supposed it was something to do with her brother's childish influence.

"Good," Pansy nodded, seeming a little distracted now that her main business with Ginny was finished.

"What is it?" Ginny asked, staring out across the lake. She didn't expect Pansy to answer, but to her surprise the Slytherin girl sighed and began to talk in a rush.

"Draco isn't telling me anything anymore. He isn't even fucking me anymore. He hasn't touched his homework in weeks and he isn't even letting Crabbe and Goyle follow him around anymore. I don't know what he's doing, I don't know what his plan is, whether he has new orders from Voldemort or is still acting on the old ones. I don't know anything and it worries me. I mean, last I heard you were to be taken alive, but what if that's changed? There's so much that could happen and whilst you undoubtedly have the power to fight them off, what if they manage to catch you unawares? What if they-"

"Pansy, you sound like a Gryffindor," Ginny smiled. She didn't smile because she didn't have exactly the same concerns as Pansy though; she smiled because she couldn't bear to think of them. It was disconcerting to know that Pansy's usual well of information has dried up, and even more disconcerting to her that she had been fucking that well. It was even more disconcerting that the usual calm and collected Slytherin was worried. Pansy didn't _do _worried. But Ginny pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind and smiled. Sometimes, smiling is all you can do to stop yourself from falling entirely to pieces.

"Like she could ever be a Gryffindor," a voice grumbled in disgust from behind them. Ginny turned and saw Ron, glaring at Pansy, standing with Harry and Hermione. Ginny wondered if they ever went _anywhere _together, and then she thought of her mum finding them in the same bed in the Burrow and had to smother a giggle.

"Hi guys," Ginny said before Pansy could speak. Judging by the gleam in the Slytherin's eye, there would be a full blown duel if somebody didn't intervene. "What are you doing here?"

"We… well, we wanted to ask you some questions," Hermione said tentatively, her eyes flickering towards Harry and Ron who suddenly looked a bit guilty.

"What did you do?" Pansy snapped, catching the glance. Harry grimaced.

"Well… we might have, um, heard what you said in the hospital wing a few weeks ago," he said, shifting from one foot to the other.

"Oh for Merlins sake, sit down, all of you," Pansy said, "And stop hovering behind us. So you eavesdropped on a private conversation? A very important private conversation that was full of very sensitive information?"

"Err… yes?" Harry smiled sheepishly, but he took a seat on the rock next to Ginny. "And, um, Neville told us about the Thunderbirds. I guess we just wanted to know… is it true? Are you… you know… a Thunderbird? And how does that even work? I mean, you're not a giant bird. And Ron isn't a Thunderbird. And-"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Pansy snapped, "I'm not going through the whole thing again. Ginny, you can explain, I'm going to go find a way to stop you dying and win this war." And with that, Pansy stood, straightened her clothes (Ron's eyes boggled until Hermione hit him upside the head) and left Ginny with three very curious friends. She sighed.

"Well, it all started when one of our ancestors fucked a giant-ass bird."

* * *

><p>Draco brushed past Pansy as he ran through the halls, gasping out of breath. He ignored her as she called out to him, unable to hear through the roar in his head. He was going to do it. He was going to. He had to. His mother had to live. She was his <em>mother <em>was fuck's sake. The only person who had ever truly loved him and he was not going to let her die for the sake of some old wizard who'd had his time long ago.

That was what he kept telling himself anyway. There was a reason he was running, you see. If he didn't run, if he didn't get there soon, he would change his mind again as he had been constantly changing his mind for the past few weeks. He was ignoring the fact that Dumbledore was a thousand times the duelist than Draco himself was. If he thought of that he would stop running and if he stopped running then his mother would die. She couldn't die. She _couldn't. _

He skidded around the last corner and found himself face to face with the gargoyle that guarded the headmaster's office. It slid across to let him past and he didn't pause to wonder why it would do so when he had not even thought of offering a password. He took the stairs two at a time and crashed through the door to find himself staring at the man he was about to kill.

Dumbledore was behind his desk, quill in hand as though he was just finishing a letter. The old wizard smiled kindly at Draco, if a bit sadly, but Draco didn't see. He was staring at the headmaster's chest, unable to lift his gaze to look into the piercing blue eyes. He had paused for too long. He was going to change his mind. His mother.

Draco raised his wand and his eyes. Their gazes met and Draco hesitated. His mother. _His mother. _

"Avada Kedavra."

* * *

><p>Harry winced in pain, letting out a small whimper, effectively cutting off Hermione and Ginny's conversation as they and Ron turned to him with worry clear on their faces. Harry <em>never <em>let himself show any sign of being in pain, not unless it was something bad. And bad for Harry was the equivalent of the cruciatus for most other people.

"Harry? What is it? Is it your scar?" Hermione asked.

"He's… happy. He's _really _happy," Harry managed to say through gritted teeth. Ginny frowned. She had gotten quite used, over the past few months, to knowing, through Pansy, what Voldemort wanted. The only thing she knew he wanted at the minute was herself and Harry, and they were both right here. So why was he so happy?

She didn't get an answer to her unspoken question though, because Harry's eyes suddenly flew open and a pained "_No" _wrenched from his throat.

"What is it?" Hermione asked.

"Are you alright, mate?" Ron tried, but neither got a response. Ginny sat quite still, thunder suddenly rolling in her mind in response to Harry's single spoken word. The Thunderbird knew what had happened, she didn't know how it knew but she knew, instinctively, that it did; and Harry didn't seem to be speaking anytime soon. And it was something bad, she knew that much. Something very bad by the looks of it. Which sort of justified the risk of what she was about to do.

She let go.

She flew through her mind, reveling in the crackling lightning and deafening thunder. She opened her mouth to scream in joy and an unbelievably loud, frighteningly primal cry came out of it. And she knew. She knew everything when she was in the thunder, everything that the bird knew. She hadn't realized this useful fact before, had never deliberately let herself become the bird before. The amount of information rushing through her was overwhelming; in less than a minute she knew more about the inhabitants of the school, about magic and about what she would have to do than she could have ever believed possible. Almost all of it flew straight out of her mind again, but she managed to hang onto the piece of information that she needed the most.

It was bad news indeed, very bad news. She was now the sole leader of the light. The headmaster was dead.

That was the last thought she managed before the bird took over completely and she lost herself.

Out by the lake, Hermione and Ron could only stare in wonder as their two friends simultaneously collapsed.

* * *

><p>"Parkinson!" Pansy turned, her brow creased into a frown as she saw that it had been Hermione Granger, of all people, who had shouted her name in such an uncouth manner. Then she saw the bodies floating behind the Gryffindor girl and she rushed forward, her heels causing her footsteps to echo down the corridor.<p>

"Ginny? What the fuck happened, Granger?" she snapped, casting a diagnostic charm on Ginny, ignoring Harry for the time being.

"I have no idea, they just collapsed!" Hermione shrieked, her hair flying wildly around her head as she gestured with her hands. "And Ron's run ahead to get Madame Pomfrey, and there's only so fast I can move when I'm floating them because I don't want to hit their heads or something and somebody needs to go and find Professor Dumbledore and-"

Hermione stopped talking and put one hand to her cheek. A cheek which Pansy had just soundly slapped.

"Snap out of it, Granger. Let's go." With that, Pansy thrust her wand back into its holster and picked Ginny out of the air. She was halfway down the corridor before Hermione got over her shock enough to hurry after her. Or, at least to attempt to. She was still floating Harry, after all, and she was sure that multiple collisions with the walls would not improve his situation.

Less than five minutes later, Pansy threw her magic at the hospital wing doors, slamming them open so that she could get through with Ginny in her arms. Madame Pomfrey and Ron looked up from their argument in shock, staring at the barely out of breath Slytherin and the unconscious girl she was holding.

"Well done Weasley, your help was greatly appreciated," Pansy snarled, depositing Ginny carefully into the nearest bed. Ron's face, already red from arguing turned beetroot and he opened his mouth to speak. Before he could, however, Hermione came through the doors with Harry floating behind her.

"What is going on here?" Madame Pomfrey asked, bustling Harry into a bed next to Ginny.

"I told you!" Ron snapped, "They just collapsed!" Madame Pomfrey frowned at the red head.

"And I told you, Mr Weasley, that I have an entire quidditch team in here, several of them regrowing bones, and I cannot just run out of my hospital every time a student comes in and starts shouting at me! I have an entire school of children to look after!"

Pansy looked round, and the blood drained from her face. Luckily for her, she was already incredibly pale, and so her reaction went unnoticed for the most part. That did not mean that she didn't have seven disbelieving Slytherins staring at her, however. She took a step away from Ginny's bedside, her mind racing with excuses as to why she would be physically carrying an injured Gryffindor to the hospital wing. She came up blank.

"Right," she muttered, too quiet for anybody but maybe Ron next to her to hear, "Okay then." She took a step back towards Ginny's bed just as Harry woke up. Her movement was therefore lost on everybody but the Slytherin quidditch team, who hadn't taken their eyes off of her. She made eye contact with as many of the seven of them as she could and glared defiantly. She was officially out.

"Wha' happened?" Harry slurred behind her, but Pansy turned back to Ginny only to find the girl awake and staring at her.

"What happened?" Pansy asked quietly as everybody fussed around Harry.

"Dumbledore," Ginny said, her eyes wide and scared but her mouth set in a defiant line.

"Draco," Pansy answered.

"Yes."

And that was it for a while. The others eventually managed to get the story out of Harry, at which point the Golden Trio simultaneously decided to break down, whether into tears or into a rage. Madam Pomfrey went white, clutching her heart, and even some of the eavesdropping Slytherin's looked rather shocked. Professor Snape came in a little while later, floating a covered stretcher behind him. The body. And then there were various other teachers, students trying to crowd into the infirmary before being unceremoniously kicked out. And then came the ministry officials, Lucius Malfoy with them. Even the minister was there. But Pansy and Ginny sat quietly through it all, holding hands although neither of them could remember when they had started to do so, taking comfort in the contact and each other's' silence. Because they both knew the truth of the matter that everybody else in the room had failed to grasp.

Ginny was it now. Ginny and Harry. Their only chance.

* * *

><p>"Draco… well done, my servant," Voldemort hissed, smiling eerily down at Draco. Even having completed such a difficult and dangerous task for his master, Draco still felt more than a prickle of unease as he knelt before the Dark Lord. And it was nothing to do with the overwhelming shame and nausea he felt at his actions. No, this was the unease that told him that he was about to be punished. He tried to tell himself that it was simply because he was used to being punished- usually he hadn't accomplished anything quite so impressive.<p>

"Thank you, my lord," Draco murmured, fighting to keep the bile from rising in his throat.

"I think, however, that you need a little lesson…" Voldemort grinned, fingering his wand, and Draco tensed. Here was the torture his subconscious was expecting. "You need to learn to do what I ask when I ask it. I do not expect to have to blackmail my servants, nor should I. You did not kill Albus Dumbledore through dedication to your master, you killed him out of love for your mother. That is… unacceptable."

Draco almost lost his battle with the bile in his throat as he glanced to his mother, standing pale and terrified in the sidelines. She smiled at Draco though when he made eye contact, the same loving smile that Draco remembered from his childhood. _No. _No, the Dark Lord couldn't do this. Couldn't make Draco do something so horrific, so… _wrong_, and then take back his promises. His mother was safe, his mother was-

"Avada Kedavra." Draco saw the life leave her eyes, the smile fading from her lips as she crumpled to the ground. _No. No, no not her not his mother, mum, not her anybody but-_

"The funny thing is," Voldemort interrupted Draco's breakdown with a triumphant hiss, "You have nobody else to go to. You killed Albus Dumbledore. The light side is hardly likely to accept you now. I am all you have, Draco." The Dark Lord grinned and stood, approaching Draco with open arms.

Draco did the only thing he could think of. With a last glance at the husk of his mother, he apparated away. He would rather be alone than with his mother's murderer.


	8. EIGHT

A/N: Hai guysss. Enjoy :)

EIGHT

"I knew it," Harry muttered. He had been muttering those words, or at least words to that effect, sometimes with an added "fucking Malfoy", for the last few hours and it was beginning to grate on everybody's nerves, Ginny and Pansy's especially. They were sat, along with Ron and Hermione, in the Room of Requirement which was currently posing as a cosy common room complete with a lit fireplace around which the five were sat. They were waiting for somebody to arrive, according to Hermione, though she wouldn't tell any of the rest of them who.

"Potter, if you say another word about Draco, I swear to Merlin I will-" Pansy ground out through gritted teeth, having finally reached the end of her tether.

"Why are you even defending him? He killed Professor Dumbledore for fuck's sake," Harry shot back.

"Yes, he did and it was an abominable thing to do. I don't even like him, you should know. But Voldemort was threatening to kill his family, fuck, he _has _killed Narcissa, if The Prophet is anything to go by. What would _you _do if you were in his place?"

"My family is dead!" Harry shouted, standing from his chair. The books and ornaments on the shelves around the room began to tremble as Harry began to lose control of his magic. Ginny winced as the Thunderbird began to rumble in her mind. She was in better control since she had voluntarily let the bird take over, but that did not mean that Harry releasing a mess of uncontrolled magic wouldn't cause Ginny to be taken over by the bird's more primal urges to destroy everything around her.

Pansy reached a hand across the sofa and placed it on Ginny's knee, a gesture that told Ginny clearly that the Slytherin, at least, had recognized the danger if she pursued this argument.

"Okay," Pansy said softly, lowering her defiant gaze, "I apologize. I only meant that although his actions can never be excused, I personally cannot say that I would not do the same if somebody I loved more than anything was in grave danger. And after seeing how much you love your friends, I thought perhaps you could see that as well. It was poorly worded though, and I should never have spoken in the first place."

The books stopped rattling in their places and Hermione and Ron shot Pansy grateful glances which Harry luckily missed as he slumped back into his chair.

"I'm sorry too," Harry muttered rather ungracefully, before resuming his moody glare into the fire.

* * *

><p>Had Snape been of a normal disposition (for him, I mean, not for anybody else) he would have smirked when he cracked the door to the Room of Requirement open and heard the last half of Pansy Parkinson's little apology speech. It was horrendously obvious to anybody sensible (so, anybody but a Gryffindor then) that she hadn't meant a word of it, but Potter seemed to fall for it hook, line and sinker. However, Severus Snape was not of a normal disposition at that particular moment in time, his master, mentor, friend and savior having been murdered by his brat of a godson less than a week ago.<p>

He was feeling, instead, uncharacteristically numb. Severus Snape was a passionate man usually, though most of that passion went into fuelling his hatred and rage, but all of that passion had dimmed entirely until it was barely a spark. He could not see any path clear to him. Dumbledore had not had time to finish telling the Potter brat of his plan to destroy Voldemort and without it Snape was afraid that they had no chance whatsoever. So now, Snape was a Death Eater. He hated the idea, more than he hated the fact that Albus had died, but unless Potter pulled a plan out of his ass, becoming a Death Eater proper was the only way that Severus could stay alive. He could just give in and die, he supposed, but that would surely be a complete waste of all of these years struggling through the days in a wash of misery.

Because Severus Snape had never truly been happy since the day he had called Lily Potter a mudblood.

Sighing slightly, he pushed the door open properly and stepped into the room. He felt as though he were sealing his doom.

* * *

><p>"<em>Him<em>," Pansy snarled, for once in her life forgetting herself and allowing her first thought to spill from her lips. She regretted what she had done within seconds, though a minute more showed her the ridiculousness of this- why regret showing her true feelings when she no longer had any reason to hide them?

"Yes, him. Professor Snape, please come in and have a seat," Hermione said courteously. Pansy fought a smirk when Snape sneered at the Gryffindor and moved instead to stand before the fire. She glanced at Ginny, who was peering at Snape with narrowed eyes, but otherwise had not reacted to his presence. In fact, neither Harry nor Ron had reacted anywhere near as strongly as she would have expected. A Death Eater had, after all, just walked into the room. Unless they didn't know that he was… Surely the Order knew, and they would have told them.

"Let's skip the accusations, Miss Parkinson," Snape drawled, though his voice lacked the venom it usually did. "I am a marked Death Eater, but have been a spy for the last twenty years. You will not, obviously, be able to speak of this when you leave the room." Pansy's eyebrows creased at this last, wondering why he would be so careless as to just tell her, but then she saw his wand tip disappear up his sleeve and knew that he had spelled her to silence. Cheeky bastard.

"Fine. But you attacked Ginny at the start of this year, did you not?" Pansy smiled as Ron reddened and rose out of his chair.

"You did _what?" _He snarled, and even Hermione looked sharply at her Professor. Harry carried on staring broodingly into the fire, seeming to be oblivious to the fact that Snape's legs now partially obstructed his view. Ginny herself looked also to be oblivious to the conversation, as she continued to watch Snape. Her hair was beginning to drift in invisible eddies of wind around her shoulders though, so Pansy knew that the Thunderbird at least was reacting.

"I did not attack her," Snape said, "Your sister seems to have gained possession of some strange and dangerous power which I worried might be, and indeed has proved to be, a threat to the students around her. I tried to find out what it was, and she overreacted."

Ginny's hair crackled around her head in a flare of power that drew Harry's eyes from the fire to Ginny. Pansy put her hand on her friend's knee, hoping that she would not lose control and kill them all. Although that would stop them from having to fight Voldemort, she supposed.

"I did _not _overreact," Ginny spit out, and even Ron and Hermione who did not seem to be able to sense her power heard the edge to her voice. An edge of something different, something _other. _Something definitely not Ginny. Ron sat down again abruptly, staring at his baby sister with something akin to fear and awe. "You tried to force your way into my mind. Try again now that I have some control over my power and you will not come away so easily." Even the words were more Hermione than Ginny. The youngest Weasley had never been one for speaking complexly when a short, quick sentence could get the job done just as quickly.

Luckily for him, Snape seemed more amused than anything else.

"I don't doubt it," he smirked. "Will I be getting an explanation?" He directed this question to Hermione, Pansy was amused to note, who, as the only muggle born in the room was the least likely to know what was happening. Ginny, or rather, the thunderbird, was not pleased with this change of subject but nevertheless allowed it, her eyes flashing white with lightning only once before her hair settled back around her shoulders. She put a hand over Pansy's, shooting a grateful smile at her.

"Ginny has the power of a Thunderbird," Hermione told him. Pansy rolled her eyes. She always had to give an answer even if she knew nothing of what she was talking.

"Actually, she _is _a Thunderbird. So yes, she does have the power of one, but in the same way that we all have the power of a witch or wizard. We don't just have their power, we _are _them, mind, body and soul."

"But her power comes from the earring, doesn't it?" Hermione protested, annoyed at having her knowledge questioned.

"Not as such. Think about it like the way our magic slowly develops and grows over the years. Ginny's thunderbird heritage just needed a little… blessing, I suppose, to be allowed to manifest. A link to the bird."

Professor Snape nodded, though Hermione still had her lips pursed and a frown on her face. She _really _didn't like being shown up, Pansy decided.

"And how is it, exactly, that you know all of this, Miss Parkinson?" Snape asked. He sounded genuinely interested and Pansy supposed he was thinking of the Slytherin bimbo she pretended to be.

"I know a lot about a great variety of things, sir. You are not the only one to have played a part for years," she added. Her Professor looked at her intently and she thought for a moment she thought that she saw pride in his eyes. She snorted aloud. Typical bloody Slytherin.

"Why the fuck are we here, Hermione?" Ginny suddenly snapped, making them all jump. Perhaps she had not calmed down as much as Pansy had assumed. She had forgotten momentarily that the younger girl was a Gryffindor, and a Weasley to boot. She felt a sting and withdrew her hand from Ginny's lap and leant back in her seat, arching her eyebrows at the red head. "What?" Ginny asked, glaring at Pansy.

"Oh, nothing. But if you don't stop giving out electrical shocks, I am never touching you again," she snarked. Ron almost choked.

"I wasn't aware that you were… touching her an awful lot to begin with," he croaked out, face reddening again. Snape rolled his eyes and sighed, as did Pansy, though they both looked away when they realized what they had done.

"Honestly, Ronald, that wasn't what they meant. They aren't touching in that manner, Parkinson just meant in general," Hermione scolded him.

"And how do you know we aren't touching in that manner?" Pansy asked, crossing her legs and grinning an evil grin. It was Hermione's turn to boggle at them. Only Harry seemed unaffected, indeed, he had seemed unaffected by the entire conversation. He had simply sat in his chair, staring unblinking at Ginny. It was unnerving enough for Pansy and she wasn't even on the receiving end of the stare.

"As interesting as hearing about my student's sex life is, I believe that Miss Weasley had a question that we would all like an answer to, Miss Granger," Snape drawled.

"Oh, yes," Hermione stuttered, flushing slightly. She was so flustered that she forgot to rebuke Ginny for swearing at her. "Well, I thought, well. You two," here she gestured at Pansy and Ginny, "seem to have formed your own side of the war. Now, I know that we can't join the Order, but I was thinking that perhaps we could join _your _side. Um… does it have a name?"

"The Thunderbugs," Ginny deadpanned.

"No," Pansy said at the same time.

"What's wrong with the Thunderbugs?" Ginny pouted, idly poking her finger through a hole in the hem of her t-shirt. She really did have the most appalling fashion sense, Pansy lamented before switching her attention back to the matter at hand.

"Not no to that, you dolt, no to them joining our side. Besides, what does Professor Snape have to do with that? He's already in the Order, I would assume."

"No? Just like that? Why not?" Hermione gaped, ignoring the question. Ron beside her looked just as outraged. Harry carried on staring at Ginny.

"No. Just like that," Pansy repeated. "And as for why not, why should we? What do you have to bring to our side?" Hermione gaped some more. She might have sputtered a little bit as well.

"What do we have to bring?" she eventually exclaimed, "We've been fighting Voldemort for years!"

"Yeah, we didn't just suddenly switch sides a few months ago, unlike _some _people!" Ron added. Pansy smiled, idly inspecting her fingernails, but she could feel Ginny growing restless beside her. She sighed internally, Gryffindors really were far too hot headed. Or perhaps that was just Weasleys. She supposed the whole Thunderbird thing really didn't help, but that did very little to excuse the two thirds of the Golden Trio's behavior.

"Interesting that you assume I was on Voldemort's side before I joined Ginny's. Is it because I'm in Slytherin, or is it just something about me as a person?"

* * *

><p>Severus snorted. He had so far seen very little reason for his presence at this 'meeting', but as it was proving to be rather entertaining he was hardly going to complain now. At the very least he had gained enough material to mock Granger and the Weasley boy with for the rest of… forever. At the moment, the redhead was yelling expletives at Pansy and Ginny (for what reason, Severus wasn't honestly sure) whilst Granger nodded along beside him.<p>

Potter was staring intently at the Weasley girl though, and Severus found his eyes being drawn to her as well. There was something vaguely hypnotizing about watching the power ooze and glide around her in eddies and currents. His own magic, he knew, flowed like oil around his aura and Albus's had (he winced at the past tense) floated like dandelion seeds on a breeze. Though he would never have put that thought into words, lest word got around that the fearsome head of Slytherin house was talking about such innocent images. It might scare the children.

But Ginny's power was something else. He was sure that Pansy had noticed as it was undoubtedly the reason she had suddenly decided to join the side of the light, even if she had joined it in such an unorthodox manner. Ginny's power was quick and darting, like gale-force wind or the sea in the midst of a fierce storm. It was old and powerful and nature at its harshest. And they wondered why he had worried about her being in the middle of a school full of children. It was like strapping a child with an armed bomb that might go off at any second and sending them off to class.

"What?" Severus snarled, glancing around to find that everybody was staring at him.

"We were just wondering what you thought, sir," Hermione piped up. He raised an eyebrow at her.

"What I thought about _what _exactly?" he asked acidly.

"About these three joining me and Ginny. Though why exactly your opinion matters, I don't know. For that matter, I don't think I ever got an answer to why you're even here. No offence, sir," Pansy smiled innocently at him. Annoying bint, he thought.

"I don't really care either way who joins your little _club _since I have no doubt you have no idea what you are even doing and with Miss Weasley unable to control her power you are all more likely to blow yourselves up than you are to defeat Voldemort single handedly." More's the shame, he added to himself. If they had a decent chance he would have a much better option than maiming in Voldemort's name for the rest of his life.

"I am _not _unable to control my power!" Ginny snapped, but even as she said it her power pulsed around her angrily, like a dog straining against a loosely held leash.

"Clearly," Snape drawled. He was growing bored with the entire conversation. _Why was he here?_ Why had he foolishly given in to his curiosity and accepted the invitation? He would be better served to sitting in his quarters and drowning himself in fire whiskey than in this room with these imbeciles.

"Ginny," Pansy said in a soothing voice, flashing a glare at Severus which he pointedly ignored.

"Why am I here?" He asked Hermione bluntly, successfully distracting her from her ongoing outrage at Pansy's refusal. It seemed the little know-it-all couldn't bear being asked a question by a teacher and not answering it, even in the state of annoyance she was currently in.

"I was hoping that you would be our liaison with the Order, sir," she said politely, "That was assuming, of course, that we would be allowed to join our friend's obviously very exclusive group." This last was said with no little amount of venom for the Gryffindor.

"Well, of course we're not going to let you join if you're already making decisions without our knowledge!" Pansy snapped, exasperated.

"Why don't you let my sister talk for herself, Parkinson? She's the one with the power, you're just a nobody Slytherin!" Ron retorted.

Snape sighed to himself as they descended yet again into bickering. And they thought that _they _could defeat _Voldemort_? They were bloody idiots.

* * *

><p>Draco panted as he ran through the forest, tripping constantly on roots and debris. Spells shot past his head but he didn't bother turning to retaliate- if they caught up with him he would be dead. Well, tortured for hours first most likely, but then they would kill him. So he just ducked his head down and ran.<p>

His usually pristine hair was filthy, falling in lank locks around his face, and his expensive robes were cut to shreds, revealing the equally soiled suit underneath. He looked like shit, and he knew it, but surprisingly for him this was the least of his worries right now.

The Dark Mark appeared to have some sort of tracking spell in it; at least that was how he assumed they kept finding him. He needed to get rid of it, and _soon_. He wouldn't last much longer like this and he knew it. He was well aware of how long deserters tended to live. Regulus Black had lasted a week or so, his father had told him, and Karkaroff a few months. But he had only lasted that long because the Dark Lord had other things on his mind at the time. With Dumbledore dead, Draco appeared to be near the top of Voldemort's to-do list.

A spell grazed his ear and he cried out in pain, stumbling over the rough ground. That was how he saw it. The cave. He put on an extra burst of speed and threw himself into the darkness, throwing up every shield spell and ward that he knew behind him. Within seconds they were at the entrance, battering his shields with a barrage of spells. Draco considered his options.

He could apparate out again; it would take them a little while to find him. But they _would _find him. Or he could get rid of it. Get rid of the Dark Mark. It was an idea that had been floating around in his head for the last few days, but he had no idea if it would work or not.

Looking up at the black robed figures mere feet away, he made his decision. Blood poured everywhere and he could not help but scream as the cutting charm sliced a chunk of his forearm off.

He didn't bother healing it before apparating away. If it had worked, then there would be plenty of time for that later. If it didn't then he didn't suppose it mattered if he died of blood loss before they could torture him too much.


	9. NINE

A/N: to my knowledge, only about one person is still reading this, so thanks to that one person, and I hope you enjoy the new chapter!:)

* * *

><p>NINE<p>

The rolling and crashing of the thunder was being tainted, Ginny decided. The storms in her mind no longer reminded her of her childhood, of the hill near her house and of her brothers fetching her inside. It didn't in remind her of her mother's scolding, of her father's bemusement or the sheer adrenaline rush she always got from standing underneath the clouds as they fought in the heavens. Oh, she still felt a thrill and she was still filled with adrenaline but she was beginning not to notice it as much. It had ceased to be extraordinary because it seemed as though it was all she felt these days. Barely a moment of her day went by without the distant sense of storms far off in the back of her mind, and it only took a misspoken word to cause her anger to flare.

She had not hurt anybody yet, but she was terrified that she soon would. She was scared that Professor Snape was right, greasy, evil git that he was, and she was a danger to her friends. She had not seen what she had done to her attackers all those weeks ago but from what the teachers and ministry officials had said, it hadn't been pretty. To her knowledge, they were still in St. Mungo's, waiting to heal enough that they could stand trial and be shipped off to Azkaban. Where they could then be broken out by the Death Eaters.

She sighed. The Christmas holidays were coming up and there were almost as few students staying at the castle as there had been when the Chamber of Secrets was open. Dumbledore's death had frightened parents- if the headmaster could be killed in the middle of the school, how on earth were their children expected to be safe? Many kids had already been taken out by anxious parents, and Ginny could not blame them. She thought about her own parents often, wondering if they were going to try and take her away from Hogwarts. They had wanted to after her attack, after all, so she would not be at all surprised if they were plotting to get her and Ron back to the Burrow as soon as possible.

* * *

><p>"They have to get back to the Burrow as soon as possible!" Molly Weasley said fiercely to her husband, "They aren't safe there, not even Albus was safe there!"<p>

"Molly, I doubt it was a case of Albus's safety. I expect he let Draco kill him, though for what reason I couldn't say. There's no way that Draco Malfoy could beat Albus Dumbledore in a fight if Albus was trying to win. And they will be back for Christmas, and the rest of the boys are safe where they are as well," Arthur said soothingly, trying to calm his wife. Secretly, he agreed with her, though for different reasons. Though he was all for his daughter defending herself when attacked, he did not want the next lot of Death Eaters in training to end up dead. He didn't want blood on his daughter's hands, not at her age.

"Oh, I know, and I know that they can look after themselves, I just want them _here, _want them with me and out of this ridiculous war," Molly sobbed, sagging into her chair. Arthur immediately felt guilty- he almost preferred the fiercely determined, on-the-warpath Molly to this desolate one. "They're just children, they shouldn't have any part of this!"

"I know, Molly dear, I know," Arthur murmured, wrapping his arms around his wife. He couldn't bring himself to tell her it would be alright though. The last war had taken her brothers from her, and Arthur could give no guarantees that this one would not take any of their children. All at once, Arthur was crying too, letting his silent tears drip onto Molly's shoulders.

* * *

><p>Draco was in a muggle shop. He was terrified, if he was honest with himself, but honesty was something he rarely indulged in. Instead, he was calm, confident and not in the slightest bit woozy from the loss of blood from his arm. The trackers seemed to have lost his trail, so he had healed his arm as best he could, transfigured his ragged robes into something more… <em>muggle, <em>cast a few cleaning charms and began to put phase two of his plan into action. Disguise.

He wrinkled his nose at the boxes in front of him. He couldn't go for blonde, even if it was a different shade, no matter how pretty they looked, and he refused to dye his hair black or red. If Potter or Weasley ever saw him like it, he'd never hear the end of it. The mousy browns looked hideous though, and even though he was in hiding, that was no reason to look _ugly. _At length, he chose a chocolate brown, thinking that it would go terribly with his colouring but that it was the best he could hope for. Not for the first time, he wished that this part of his plan couldn't just involve extensive glamours, but they were too easily spotted by a wizard looking for them.

Furtively, he glanced around the shop, checking that his notice-me-not charms were still working. The girl behind the counter was staring glumly out of the window still, so he assumed they were. He didn't have a single knut with him, let alone any muggle money. Stealing was the only way to go. As if life couldn't get any worse. He walked out of the shop with his hair dye, ignoring the alarms that he set off behind him and apparated away to his 'hotel' room.

It wasn't exactly the standard of hotel room that he was used to. The Malfoy families had properties in most countries, but on the rare occasion that they didn't, he and his parents had stayed in the most expensive hotels to be found. He was fairly sure that the 'hotel' he was staying in now was one of the cheapest. He didn't actually know, as he hadn't bothered to ask the price. He had no money to his name, so he knew that there was no way that he could afford it, whatever the price happened to be. Luckily though, it was a muggle place and so he was able to get away with the confundus charm that persuaded the owner that the nice blonde boy had paid up front for several weeks. It wouldn't work for long though- the owner would eventually look at his books and realize that there was money missing. And then it was only a matter of time until Draco was found. He needed money. He needed a job.

He shook his head, disgusted at the thought, and put that problem away for later. First things first, he needed to be able to go out without worrying about lurking Death Eaters searching for Malfoy-blonde hair.

In years to come, Draco Malfoy never found it strange that he found dying his hair more terrifying than being chased by Death Eaters, and his friends were (mostly) all too tactful to make fun of him for it.

* * *

><p>Ginny knew somebody was approaching because the thunder had warned her. She was outside, up high in the branches of a tree on the edges of the Forbidden Forest. In truth, she was hiding from Hermione. Ever since their disastrous meeting Hermione had been hounding Ginny, trying to persuade the younger girl to ignore Pansy and allow the Golden trio to join her 'side'. Though she was slowly coming around to the idea the more people took it seriously, Ginny still thought the idea of her having an actual 'side' in this war was faintly ridiculous. She knew she had power- Pansy reminded her of it often enough and she couldn't deny that she felt it too. But to have a side… to be in charge of people, of <em>soldiers <em>in a war. She might be a Thunderbird, an old, primal force of nature, but she was also still just Ginny. Ginny who had fallen for Tom's diary and thought herself in love with Harry Potter. Ginny who liked Quidditch more than anything and hated the library.

She loved the library now, and wished she could be there where the claustrophobic feel of the walls and the shelves and the books dampened the Thunderbird in her soul and allowed her to be more her old self for a while. But Hermione was much too likely to find her there and Ginny didn't know how much longer she could endure the constant begging before her temper gave way and she blasted the other girl into a wall.

These were the thoughts occupying her mind, which was why she did not manage to react in time before the stunning spell hit her in the back. She fought it for a second, holding onto consciousness for long enough to feel the pain of falling to the forest floor and to spit one word at her attacker.

"_Coward."_

* * *

><p>Blaise Zabini looked down at the red headed girl in shock. Had she just… no. It was impossible to resist a stunning spell, it wasn't like the imperius. And yet he had seen what he had seen. There was no way that he had been imagining it- Blaise Zabini did not imagine things. And so he had seen the impossible, meaning that this girl was more important than he had originally thought. And as she had been asked for specifically by the Dark Lord this was saying something. He was not fool enough to be offended by her insult- he had stunned her in the back, after all. He had no illusions that he was not a coward, and indeed saw nothing wrong with being one. In his experience, the cowards tended to live longer.<p>

He cast one more curious glance at the red head, wondering how upset Pansy would be when she found out what had happened, before binding her in ropes. She had fought against the stunning spell, after all, so it couldn't hurt to be cautious. As he walked through the forest with Ginny floating behind him, he couldn't help but be annoyed at the anticlimax of the whole affair. After what had happened to the others when they had attacked this girl (and they had only stabbed her- it was a lot easier to simply stab and run than it was to actually capture a live person) he was expecting more along the lines of an epic battle. Or to be pulverized. But he was not expecting to be able to walk up behind supposedly the most powerful girl in all of Hogwarts and stun her. The Slytherin in him was pleased of course, but that errant bit of Gryffindor that only the Sorting Hat and his mother had ever noticed in him was a little disappointed.

Before long, Blaise found himself in a clearing deep in the forest, full of hooded figures. The sun was beginning to go down but shafts of light still filtered through the trees, illuminating his comrades. His brothers. Not that he had any illusions about the loyalty of these brothers; family turned on each other all the time, after all.

"You got her!" A few exclaimed, along with the always encouraging "You're not dead!" Blaise smirked, allowing himself to bask in the feeling of accomplishment. He had done the improbable and lived to tell the tale. Not only lived, but come out of it without a single scratch on him.

"Where's Potter?" He asked, glancing around. A couple of people moved aside to reveal the bound and gagged, but fully conscious, Golden Boy behind them. Blaise met those green eyes and almost laughed at the amount of anger he saw in them. Instead, he turned back to the group and took the lead.

"Good. We have a few minutes before the portkey is set to leave, so we should probably tie them together, just in case. Easier to keep an eye on them that way." The others nodded and began to carry out his orders and Blaise grinned. It was fun being in charge.

* * *

><p>Ginny slowly came around to the sound of thunder crashing insistently in her mind. She could hear words around her but they were vague and she could only grasp onto bits of the conversation before it swum out of her reach. She thought that she was mentioned, and Harry as well. It was a little while after that when she realized that she was being moved, dragged along the ground. She opened her eyes a little and saw the forest floor, saw the hooded figures surrounding her. And then one of them saw her.<p>

"Her eyes are open!" The girl yelled, "She's fucking awake! Didn't you stun her Blaise?" Ginny snapped into action. Lightning shot along her skin, electrocuting the two figures holding her and throwing them back. There was a hush in the clearing. Ginny climbed to her feet, her back hunched in a stance that wasn't quite human. And then she opened her mouth and screamed.

The forest was silent but for the sounds of fleeing animals; even the insects fell silent. It was a scream of pure fury and even the Death Eaters in training felt fear seep into their bones at the sound.

Slowly, Ginny began to prowl in a circle, waiting for her first victim to step forward but none did and she soon grew impatient.

_Cowards._

She didn't say the word out loud, but she didn't need to. It found its way into each of her attacker's brains, worming its way into their thoughts. And then any trace of Ginny Weasley was eradicated as the thunderbird took full control. It screeched again, louder and more terrifying than before and storm clouds began to gather overhead. The clearing was plunged into near darkness as the sun overhead was blotted out.

That was when Ginny began to attack. She flew at the nearest figure, catching him by the throat with one hand and pushing lightning through herself into him until he was nothing but a smoking corpse. The next found herself with fingers plunged through her eye sockets, the next drowned on rainwater. Nobody ever really figured out how that one had happened.

She whirled and plunged and spun and killed, all with an inhuman grace and efficiency that none of her now dead attackers could have ever believed possible. Within minutes the clearing was empty of everything but dead bodies, herself and Harry- still tied up and unconscious.

And that was when everything went black for the second time that night.

* * *

><p>Blaise Zabini smirked as he emerged from the tree line with four cloaked and hooded figures flanking him. The smirk did not have quite the same confidence that the one he had sported earlier in the evening had done, but then he had just seen almost twenty of his friends and classmates murdered by one little girl.<p>

He stunned her twice more to be sure that she would stay down this time before casting the strongest incarcerating spells he knew on her. Say what you will about stunning a person in the back- it was damned effective.

* * *

><p>The Great Hall was silent after Professor Dumbledore made the announcement, the remaining students shocked out of their capacity for speech. Eighteen students had been found dead in the middle of the Forbidden Forest with another five missing. Almost all of the Slytherin upper years, and a good chunk from the other houses, had been Death Eaters. These people had been their friends, their mentors, had helped them with homework and their love lives, had been brothers and sisters or cousins or lovers. But they had all been on the wrong side of the war and now they were all dead or gone.<p>

For the first years, it was the moment that the reality of being in the midst of a war began to sink in. They had come to this amazing school of magic less than a year ago, and been thrown into a blood bath. Some of the muggleborns from all years began to make silent plans to go home, to escape this nightmare whilst they still could.

From opposite sides of the hall, Pansy and Hermione caught each other's eye. Pansy nodded slightly once, before looking away. Hermione nodded back with grim satisfaction and averted her gaze to the high table, where Professor Snape sat. He stared down his hooked nose at her for a minute but he too offered her the tiniest of nods.

They would get Harry and Ginny back. They would get them back if eighteen more people had to die in order for them to do so.


	10. TEN

TEN

"Yesss, well done, my faithful servants."

Lord Voldemort stood at the top of the hall, looking down on his Death Eaters, all kneeling before him. The ones that were still alive, that is. There had been another incident after they had arrived with the Weasley girl and the Potter brat, but the girl had been subdued with a heart attack curse to the back of her head followed up by a healthy dose of stunners. She had only managed to kill five of them before she had been subdued, which Voldemort took as a good sign. He had no idea what she was, but it was exciting to know that somebody with the power to corrode no less than five stunners in ten minutes was in his power.

"And the blood?" he asked.

Pettigrew came scurrying forward, carrying two covered, glass cauldrons. Blood sloshed in both of them, enough that everybody present knew that the two teenagers in the dungeons must be close to death.

Voldemort waited patiently for Pettigrew to reach him, idly peering into the enormous, smoking cauldron beside him. The cauldron had only the tiniest amount of liquid in the bottom to which the Dark Lord added a page from an old diary. The page had a jagged hole punched through the middle of it, but the magic still lingered. Not enough to serve as a tie to this earth anymore, but enough to hold an imprint of what it had once been.

Finally, Pettigrew reached the top of the hall and the blood was poured into the cauldron. The blood of the two human beings who had been possessed by the diary. The diary had left traces of its magic in them as well, an imprint of Lord Voldemort's soul, small enough to go undetected but large enough to make this potion work.

Smoke bellowed from the cauldron, filling the room to the extent that the death eaters could no longer even see the floor below them. Their lord began to chant, a monotonous drone in some dead language. Time passed, Pettigrew passed out. The lack of air was beginning to make its effect known on many of the other death eaters as well, and so a lot of them thought that they were hallucinating when the smoke finally cleared.

At the top of the hall was their Lord Voldemort, the one that they served, whom they pledged their lives to. And next to him, rising naked from the cauldron was a snake-faced man with red eyes and a malevolent grin.

* * *

><p>No stretch of the imagination could deny that the pub in which Draco Malfoy was currently working was a shithole. It was dirty, smelly and filled with the lowest of the low- the sort of scum that even Death Eaters would have nothing to do with. Well, any self-respecting Death Eater, which, Draco mused, was not many.<p>

All the same, Draco was grateful for the work. It was a nice feeling to be able to eat food that he hadn't stolen from muggles. It was an even nicer feeling to know that he wouldn't need to venture into the muggle world at all anytime in the foreseeable future. He could happily go his entire life without going there again. Forget his father's spiel about muggles being little better than animals- they were bloody terrifying! There were so many of them, and everybody was rushing and there were lights everywhere and those… _car _things speeding around with no concern for anyone's safety. No. Never again. He would take a smelly pub in the backwaters of Knockturn Alley over that world any day.

Even better, it had given him a chance to test out his disguise. It seemed to work perfectly. There hadn't been any Death Eaters bashing the door down to kill him, and nobody had said anything, anyway. Dyed hair and a bit of dirt smeared over him and he could hardly recognize himself in the mirror as a Malfoy.

He'd introduced himself as Daniel. He sort of liked being Daniel, to tell you the truth. When he was Daniel all he had to do was concentrate on serving people drinks and wiping down the bar. He could forget that his father was most likely currently being tortured in his own home; he could forget that his mother was dead and that he could never go back to his school again. He could even, for a short time at least, forget that he had murdered Albus Dumbledore. That was the part he liked to forget the most. Unfortunately for him, it was all the scumbag clientele seemed to want to talk about these days.

Well, until today that is.

"Oi, Berny, did you hear?"

"Hear what? Get me a firewhiskey, boy."

"Only that the fucking boy-who-lived has gone and gotten himself kidnapped. Him and some girl, one of that red-headed lot of wankers."

"The Weasels?"

"Yeah, that's them. Anyway, they killed about fifty students and then went and got themselves fucking kidnapped."

"Who by?"

"Who by? Who fucking by? Who do you fucking think would kidnap the fucking Chosen One and his little bint? The Dark Lord, that's who!"

Draco tuned out the rest of their conversation (which had mostly degenerated to calling each other names) in favour of cleaning a few glasses with a dirty rag and having a mild panic attack. It was the same panic attack that he had been having all day, since he had first heard the news that Potter and Weasley were gone. Dumbledore was dead and Potter was gone. Hogwarts really wasn't having the best time of it, lately.

Draco knew that Voldemort needed Potter and the Weasley girl that Pansy had been hanging around with for something, but he didn't know what. He had wanted their blood at first, but then he had said that it hadn't worked. _What _hadn't worked? Draco tried with all his might to remember exactly what the Dark Lord had said, but all he could remember was pain and fear and… and _red eyes staring at him from a corpse. _He had been trying to block it from his memory, sure that if the Dark Lord realized that he recognized those eyes that he would be punished. But he couldn't exactly fear any more punishment now.

A second Dark Lord. The realization hit Draco so hard that he dropped the glass he was cleaning. It smashed on the ground at his feet and the two arguing men stopped to look at him. One of them started yelling expletives but he paid them no mind because right now, they were nothing. Not even a drop in the ocean compared to the possibility of there being a second Dark Lord. One was almost unstoppable, two would be… He couldn't even imagine. How many more mothers would be killed with two Dark Lords?

Why would Potter and Weasley's blood be important though? He had read about potions that did this sort of thing, but generally they needed blood from close relatives, children preferably. Potter and Weasley weren't related to the Dark Lord. Well, no more than any of the pureblood families were.

Draco suddenly became aware that there might not be two Dark Lords yet. He also became aware that he knew where the Gryffindors would be held. Then he became aware of the fact that this could all be a trap set for him. Though why _Potter _would be used as bait, he didn't know.

And then he stopped thinking and started _doing. _

He kicked the man who had been yelling at him in the head as he vaulted over the bar and ran for the door, a fact which he would only get to appreciate when he reviewed the memory in a Pensieve later on.

* * *

><p>"What do you mean you can't do anything?" Pansy hissed through her teeth, her eyes flashing dangerously and her fingers itching for her wand.<p>

"I mean there is nothing I can do! What do you think I mean, you idiotic child?" Snape snapped back, just as incensed as she was.

They were in his office in the dungeons along with Ron, Hermione, Neville and Luna, the last two of whom had insisted on coming along for the ride. The three Gryffindors, scared and angry and worried beyond belief, were standing back to let the Slytherins have their shouting match.

"But you are the spy! What fucking good is a spy if he can't even find out where the prisoners are kept? We already know that they're probably in Malfoy Manor- it isn't that fucking big, you know!"

"Well, if you know the manor so well, then why don't you tell us all where exactly the cells for holding extremely powerful prisoners are? Lucius Malfoy is not stupid and neither is the Dark Lord. They will have been put somewhere with the utmost protection on it, somewhere warded to within an inch of its life. _There is no way we can get in and it would be suicide to try."_

* * *

><p>Ginny swam her way out of the darkness for the third time in the last twenty four hours. She groaned at the pounding in her head and cracked her eyes open. She was alone in a tiny square room with no furniture. There was no window, and no door. The walls looked like they had originally been white but were now more of a grey colour- smeared in dirt and grime and… was that <em>blood? <em>She sat up only to immediately fall back down again. Her head was swimming and she felt weaker than she had since the Chamber of Secrets incident.

This time when she pulled her head from the ground, she did so slowly. Very slowly. And still she swayed and her eyes blacked out for a second. But she stayed upright. She couldn't even hear the thunder, she felt so weak. She had spent so long with it rumbling away in the back of her mind that she almost missed it now that it was gone. She could have done with a bit of reassurance, a reminder that she still had more power than they did, even if they had managed to capture her. _They had captured her. _She should feel angry, scared, desperate to escape even. But instead she just felt… vulnerable. First they had stolen her blood, and now they had captured her. And stolen even more of her blood, judging by the smears on the floor and how frail she felt. She had all of this power but it had done her no good at all when it came down to it. She was still just a weak little girl, after all of these years.

Ginny did not even have the strength left in her to get angry. She slumped back to the floor and watched the specks of light float across her eyes. Her arm throbbed painfully and she guessed without looking that there was an angry wound across it. She would have a scar that matched Harry's now. Although, she was fairly sure that she had glimpsed Harry when the Death Eaters had been attacking her, so it was probable that he was in a nearby cell with yet another scar.

She began to wonder what on earth Voldemort could want her blood for but she quickly realized that her brain wasn't working anywhere near quick enough to come up with any plausible answers. Or at least, it wasn't working quick enough to narrow the myriads of plausible answers down. She laid her head on the ground and began to wait until some of her strength came back, or the Death Eaters came for her. Whichever came first.

* * *

><p>In a cell down the hall, Harry was having a somewhat similar experience, although his was worsened somewhat by the splitting headache originating from his scar. However, he didn't have the disconcerting lack of thunder in his mind (that is to say, he had never had the thunder to begin with and so it's absence was not such a problem as it was for Ginny), and so I suppose their situations could be said to be equally unhappy.<p>

However, Harry's was about to get quite a bit better, whilst Ginny still had to wait a few minutes.

He dragged his head off of the hard stone floor at the sound of footsteps coming closer. He didn't want the Death Eaters to see his weakness after all. Never mind that they had already seen him knocked unconscious having his blood drained. When the footsteps turned into voices, he managed to sit up, though the action made the room spin, and when the voices turned into somewhat of a commotion, he was managing to kneel. He was about to attempt getting to his feet when the door crashed open and a boy about his own age stepped into the room.

"Come on, Potter, we have to be quick," the boy said, putting one arm under Harry's and hauling him up. Harry knew that voice. That voice was very, _very _familiar, and not in a good way. Luckily for everybody concerned, that was the point that Harry's brain decided it had had enough and that stopping all thought processes other than 'escape' was a good idea.

Harry half walked, half let himself be carried into the hallway, taking care to step over the unconscious, bleeding and possibly dead guards outside the door.

"Do you know where they put Weasley?" the boy asked, glancing up and down the corridor anxiously. There was one door to their left, right next to the way out, which was standing open and two to their right. Harry's gut told him far right, and he said so to the boy. A swish of his wand later, and their rescuer had that door open as well. Ginny was inside, sprawled across the floor, her magic pulsing lightly around her. It wasn't anywhere near as hypnotizing as usual, a fact which Harry was rather glad of. He didn't need to screw up their escape because he couldn't stop staring at Ginny's power.

Evidently, she had been ignoring the commotion, but when they came into the room she raised her head. The boy let go of Harry for a second so he could help her up, and although she narrowed her eyes for a second, she took his hand. Harry missed the exchange, busy trying to stay upright.

"Which way out?" Ginny asked when they were back out in the corridor. She was stumbling along by herself, having insisted that the boy's ability to use his wand to defend them was more important than her comfort. Harry was hanging onto the brown-haired boy's shoulder, but in his defense, he had offered it to Ginny first.

"Left," the boy panted, dragging Harry towards the right door. Harry _knew _that voice. He knew that voice very well and it brought up a whole host of bad feelings. He swiveled his neck slightly so that he could see the boy's profile. That pointed nose and chin. The pale skin, the grey eyes.

"_Malfoy-"_

It was at that moment that all hell broke loose.

* * *

><p>Ginny turned at Harry's yell. She had known who their rescuer was as soon as he stepped foot in her cell, but she had been rather hoping that Harry would remain ignorant at least until they had reached fresh air. As it turned out, Harry's yell saved her life; had she not turned when she did, the green light that made a crater in the wall behind her would have hit her straight in the back of the head. There was an angry yell and a screech. The yell was from Harry who had thrown himself away from Malfoy, and the screech was from Bellatrix Lestrange, who had somehow appeared behind them.<p>

Bellatrix Lestrange, who had killed Sirius. Ginny had liked Sirius. Sure, he was somewhat unstable and acted like a fifteen year old, but after all that time in Azkaban she couldn't blame him. He had been good and noble and he had treated them like they were adults. And this _thing _in front of her had killed him.

She let go of the wall. The ground swayed beneath her feet for a second but she regained her balance and stood up straight and proud. Thunder rumbled, and it took her a second to realize that it had not just rumbled in her mind. Lightning flashed, and Bellatrix grinned.

"Bellatrix Lestrange," Ginny hissed in a voice that was not quite her own, "You killed Sirius Black. You tortured Frank and Alice Longbottom to insanity. These are but the tip on the iceberg and you will pay for your crimes."

Bellatrix laughed then and Ginny recognized it as the same one that Sirius had laughed before her had died. And then Ginny's hand was trough the older woman's throat. It was a curious feeling, Ginny mused as she stood there watching the light leave Bellatrix's eyes. Electricity was rippling down her skin, causing the blood rushing over her hand to boil and the flesh of the torn out throat to cook and burn.

"That's enough, Ginny." She could tell that Harry had been going for soothing, but he could not stop his glee from spilling out.

"I am the Thunderbird," Ginny told him, turning, her hand still full of bits of Bellatrix's throat, "And I am Ginny Weasley. I am in control. And I will kill them all."


	11. ELEVEN

A/N: I'm pretty sure there's only going to be two chapters after this one, so it's nearly finished, guys! I'm really hoping to have it done by the end of September *fingers crossed*

Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

><p>ELEVEN<p>

If Draco Malfoy had had any expectations of his rescue trip, it would not have been that Ginny Weasley would transform into some sort of bird person and rip through the Death Eaters like they were putty. Granted, they had only run into ten or so of his father's friends, but Weasley hadn't even slowed down. She had killed Bellatrix Lestrange _without even breaking a sweat_, for merlin's sake. Perhaps Potter wasn't the Chosen One after all, maybe they could just sic Weasley on the Dark Lord and be done with it. Maybe some time when Draco wasn't with her though, just in case.

He glanced away from his work with the wards for a second to sneak a peek at the girl in question. She was standing facing away from him, her back strangely hunched and her hands (now ending in lethal looking claws rather than fingers) held slightly out from her sides. She looked like she was about to pounce.

"The wards, Malfoy," Potter muttered beside him, "We can worry about Ginny's murderous streak later." Draco was surprised at how little venom was in the other boy's voice, but then Potter hadn't been able to keep his glee to himself ever since Bellatrix had been killed. Draco snorted to himself; the Gryffindor Golden Boy could barely stand up and that was _with _adrenaline coursing through him, but Potter was still bloody giddy.

A few muttered words and a prod of his wand later and they were through. Draco grabbed Potter and turned to let Ginny know that they were home free, only to find himself face to face with two Dark Lords. They were sweeping towards the edge of the grounds, about fifty death eaters at their backs.

"It _worked,_" Draco whispered. His legs started to shake and he stumbled backwards; this only served to make the Dark Lord looking his way smile. The other was focused on Ginny, who was almost quivering with what looked like rage. She had moved nearer to Draco since he last looked and her face was turned slightly towards his; it was twisted into an angry snarl that a human face should not have been able to make. Neither should a bird's, for that matter.

"You will not leave here alive," both Voldemorts hissed, still advancing on them. "You cannot leave the wards without my permission. You will die here."

"Actually," Potter said, grabbing hold of Draco's arm and looking meaningfully at Ginny, "You might be a bit wrong about that, Tom."

Draco registered what Potter meant as soon as Weasley threw herself at them. Well, almost as soon. There was a blind second of panic in which he thought she had turned on them and he was about to die, but he wouldn't be mentioning that. Ever. She hit into them with more force than should have been possible for a girl of her size and the Dark Lords could do nothing but scream with rage as the three of them passed through the wards and apparated away.

As if the Malfoy's would ever create wards around their house that didn't have a secret backdoor. One which only a pureblood Malfoy could use, of course.

* * *

><p>"Where the fuck are we?" Pansy asked, looking around the run down warehouse in disgust. There were gaps in the roof and the walls were made of metal and <em>rusting. <em>Pansy wasn't sure she had ever set foot anywhere quite so… horrible before in her life. Not that it could bring her mood down at all, of course, because Ginny had been rescued and wasn't dead. Pansy wasn't sure at this moment that she could ever be unhappy again. Yes, she was well aware that that was a feeling that would soon leave her but that didn't mean that she couldn't enjoy it whilst it lasted.

She had been busily sitting in the library at Hogwarts, searching in vain for something that would allow her access through another family's blood wards when Ginny had appeared out of nowhere and insisted that Pansy come with her. Pansy had been so relieved that Ginny was alright that she had agreed before even bothering to check that it really was Ginny. She wasn't a Slytherin for nothing though, and a few silent charms aimed at the redhead's back took care of the identity issue. They had snuck through the corridors, stopping off at the dungeons where they found Hermione, Ron and Neville in a shouting match with Professor Snape. Loony Lovegood had been watching the fight, and they had all insisted on coming along. Though Ginny had not yet bothered to tell them where exactly it was that they were coming along to. Until now, that is.

"Abandoned warehouse. Wales, I think," She told them, clicking her neck. She looked like shit, Pansy was quick to note. Her usually flyaway red hair was falling lankly around her shoulders and she had veritable suitcases underneath her eyes. She looked small and frail. And somewhat covered in blood.

"Harry!" Hermione shrieked, running towards the boy in question, Ron not far behind her. Harry looked up wearily as they approached, but he managed a smile and didn't wince too much when they hugged him. Pansy took that as a good sign.

"Mr Malfoy," Snape drawled with no small amount, "I had assumed you were dead."

"Malfoy?"

"_Malfoy?"_

"I'll fucking kill him!"

This last came from Ron who then made a wild run at the brown haired boy who had, until Snape's words, been attempting to blend into the background. Unfortunately for him, Malfoy's just weren't made to blend. A gust of wind and rain lashed into Ron, knocking him to the ground and everybody turned to stare at Ginny.

"If anybody was going to kill him for what he did, _Ronald, _it would be me. He rescued me and Harry. Leave him the fuck alone." Ron spluttered for a minute, but then Luna stepped forward and pulled him away, across the warehouse, to calm down for a few minutes.

"Why is he here?" Draco asked Ginny, "He'll bring them to us in minutes!"

It was a mark of just how tired Ginny was that she didn't immediately realize who he was talking about.

"What, Ron? I know he's noisy but…"

"Not your idiot brother," Pansy rolled her eyes fondly, "Professor Snape. Remember how everyone but you lot thinks he's a Death Eater? And remember how you lot all seem to forget that and act like it's perfectly normal for him to be working with the good guys?"

"Oh," Ginny said. "Uh, Malfoy, spy, spy, Malfoy. Now that introductions are done, can I get some sleep?"

Draco blinked once, then twice. And then the look of panic appeared on his face again.

"No, but it doesn't matter if he's a spy or not, he's still bring them straight to our doorstep!" He spluttered, staring wildly around as though he expected Death Eaters to appear any second.

"Professor Snape is not going to tell anybody we're here, Malfoy, he's on our side," Hermione snapped.

"Well, he's on _our _side," Harry muttered, "Not so sure which side _you're_ on, Malfoy."

"It's not that!" Draco protested, ignoring Harry, "There are trackers in the Dark Mark, for Merlin's sake! You have to leave!"

This was news to everybody. Even Ron and Luna drifted back to the group, though Ron still looked mutinous. Pansy narrowed her eyes at Draco. Last thing she knew, he had the mark himself. It wasn't exactly something you could hide when you ended up in the states of undress that she had seen him in. Draco saw her look and tugged his sleeve up.

"I cut it off," he told her, baring his mutilated forearm for all to see. Snape went white.

"Find a knife," he snapped at the group in general.

* * *

><p>Draco was in a state of disbelief. <em>Severe <em>disbelief. As if it hadn't been enough that he, murderer of the great Albus Dumbledore, had just saved Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter. As if it hadn't been enough that the Dark Lord had found a way to duplicate himself. As if it hadn't been enough that Pansy Parkinson was not only on the side of the light, but it seemed she had engineered her very own side in the war and was somewhat in love with the Weasley girl to boot. (Draco could not say why he knew that this last point was true, only that Pansy had never looked at _him _like that, and they had been fucking for years.) As if all of this had not been enough for one day.

But no, apparently it wasn't enough for his godfather, who, it turned out, was not one of the Dark Lord's most trustworthy servants after all. No, he was a spy and was now asking Draco to cut his Dark Mark off. Draco wanted nothing more than to go back to his room above the dingy pub he worked in and sleep. Sleep for long enough that all of this seemed like a dream. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like that was an option any more.

"He's angry," Potter suddenly ground out through clenched teeth, "Really angry. I think he's found Bellatrix." He was slumped against Granger, clutching his head. Draco remembered hearing something about Potter doing this in Divination once, but he had never thought that it really worked. He had assumed that it was Dumbledore's Golden Boy being Snape's Attention Seeking Brat again.

"Bellatrix? What happened to that bitch?" It was Longbottom who spoke, but Draco had to stare hard at the boy to be certain of that. Where was the meek, clumsy boy from school? This boy had more in common with Ginny Weasley on a killing spree than the bumbling idiot from Potions. Speaking of Ginny Weasley…

"I killed her," she grinned, looking every bit as demented as she probably was.

"If you do not stop talking and find me a knife, then we will all be dead and it will be rather hard to celebrate Weasley's murderous streak," Snape spat out, glaring around at the group.

"Why don't you just use magic?" Pansy asked, voicing Draco's own thoughts. Snape glared at her, his sneer more pronounced than usual.

"I used magic to cut my skin once before, I have no intention of ever repeating it." Draco blinked, staring at his godfather in a new light. Did that mean what he thought it meant…? But no, there could be a hundred reasons for those words and jumping to conclusions would not be appreciated by the snarling head of Slytherin house.

It was Luna who eventually came forward with a knife, which she had evidently been carrying in her bag. Draco didn't question that for more than a second- it _was _Loony Lovegood, after all. And then all that was left was for Draco to watch his godfather mutilate himself- all on Draco's orders, of course.

* * *

><p>It was perhaps two days later when everybody in the group felt up to talking. They all knew that they didn't have a moment to lose, of course, they knew that the two Voldemort's were likely out there killing and creating chaos as they sat around their abandoned warehouse playing chess or sleeping or practicing spells. So they felt guilty about it (bar Draco, who had too much else to feel guilty about to let a little thing like this bother him, and Luna, who was just strange that way), but that did not stop them doing it.<p>

Truth was, they needed the time to rest. Though they didn't quite realize it at the time, both Ginny and Harry had come awfully close to dying in those cells. And the rest, well, intense worry can really take it out of a person, and whilst they all knew that they should still be worried they couldn't quite bring themselves to do so. Their friends were safe (for now) and they were together. Sometimes, that was all you could ask for.

And if Ron and Hermione avoided Draco like the plague, and Snape avoided everybody like they were students and he was an irritable Potions master, and Ginny and Pansy avoided everybody who wasn't Ginny or Pansy, well then nobody mentioned it.

Ginny was the one to start the conversation. After her initial adrenaline rush had worn off, she had begun to realize exactly what she had done. She had killed about ten people (she felt even worse that she did not know the exact number- one kill blurred into another in her mind), most of them with her bare hands. And it had felt _right. _Like she was made so that these people could die. Rationally, she knew that this wasn't her- it was the Thunderbird lurking in her blood that thought these killings were justice, but Ginny Weasley was rarely rational at the best of times, let alone when this amount of stress and pressure was mounted on her shoulders.

"We need to end this soon," she said once the group had assembled, hugging her knees to her chest and keeping her eyes downcast. Pansy sat to her right, close enough that their feet could touch, whilst Harry was to her right. It had only taken one night's rest before Ginny's power was at the level at which it seemed to hypnotize Harry, but now he was back to staring at the redhead almost constantly. If Ginny found it annoying or unnerving she hadn't mentioned it to anybody, and so it became yet another of those things that were simply left uncommented upon.

"As much as I agree, Miss Weasley, I can't help but wonder if we have the means _to _finish this, soon or otherwise," Snape drawled, but it lacked his usual venom. Two days out from under the Dark Lord's thumb had done him a world of good. He had even cracked a smile when Harry reported that Voldemort had cursed Wormtail in his anger at losing his pet Potions master.

"Of course we have the means, we just have to figure out how to use them," Pansy said, her eyes flickering almost imperceptibly towards Ginny.

"Use me, you mean," Ginny said, flashing a smile at Pansy to let her know that there were no hard feelings. She wasn't _stupid, _and whilst she would prefer to have nothing to do with this entire war, she was well aware that her input could give them the advantage when it came down to it.

"I'm worried about mum and dad," Ron blurted out suddenly. "I mean, they must've figured out that we're all together, after we all disappeared at the same time, and what if they go after our families, thinking that we're with them?"

"Your mother and father are both very capable, Mr Weasley, they are more than able to look after themselves. Besides, if the Dark Lord has realized that I am with you, and I am sure her has, then he knows me well enough to know that I would not be idiot enough to hide out in your parent's shed."

Ron shut up, though Ginny was almost certain that it was more the shock of Snape's almost kind (for him) reassurance than the actual words.

"Do we even know why Voldemort went after your blood?" Hermione asked, "I mean, he needed Harry's beforehand, but why Ginny? Was it because of the Thunderbird? But I can't see that making any sense, and how would he even know about that?"

Ron looked pointedly at Draco, who scowled back.

"I didn't even know about it until I got here, Weasley," he snapped.

"I have sort of a theory about that, actually," Harry said, dragging his eyes away from Ginny and ignoring Ron and Draco. "The diary from second year. It was Riddle's old school diary, had like… a part of him in it. Dumbledore said… well, Dumbledore said it was a horcrux. I think that because me and Ginny used it that maybe part of him got… left on us? Like traces of him in our blood or something. It's the only common factor between us, really."

"Huh," Ginny grunted, "That actually makes sense."

"You don't need to sound so surprised," Harry grinned.

"So, does anybody have any idea what we're going to do?" Neville asked. To everyone's surprise, it was again Harry who answered.

"I, um, sort of have a theory about that as well."

* * *

><p>Minerva McGonagall shivered as the Scottish winter wind howled around her. The top of the Astronomy tower was not the warmest place to be, but then again it was not warmth that she wanted right now. Or should I say, it was not warmth that she <em>needed. <em>It happened very rarely in her life, and so she always found that she was entirely unequipped to dealing with it when a situation arose in which she did not know what to do.

She _always _knew what to do. Usually, it was simple- if a student has done wrong, punish them. If they have done well, reward them. If a staff member has annoyed you, let them know it with a frosty glare. If a former classmate has gone evil and begun to kill all of your friends, you stand against him. But this…

Professor Dumbledore was dead, killed by the hand of a student. The student in question (she refused to even think his name) had disappeared, presumed to be by Voldemort's side. Professor Snape was missing- whether to join Voldemort or because he opposed him, she did not know. Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley had been kidnapped, and because of them the upper years in Hogwarts were completely decimated. And now some of the few older students she had left had gone as well, to Merlin knows where.

And it fell on _her _shoulders to pick up the pieces. To comfort the younger students whose friends, family members and mentors had been discovered to be Death Eaters. Dead Death Eaters at that. To listen to Molly Weasley sob because her two youngest children had disappeared. To field questions from the press and the ministry and all sorts of other people who expected her to know everything. To try and hold a school together with no support. Merlin, Minerva was finding it difficult enough to hold herself together these days, so how was she supposed to be able to help any of these people?

"Come back," she whispered into the night sky, "Come back and help me."


	12. TWELVE

A/N: One more to go, kiddy-winks. I really sort of love this chapter (mainly because I've been planning the end scene in my head for about as long as I've been writing this story), so I really hope you like it :D

TWELVE

"These reports make no sense," Remus said, drawing nods from everybody sat around the table. "If even half of these were true, there's no way that Voldemort could be everywhere at once."

"Perhaps a time turner?" Tonks asked, but Kingsley shook his head.

"I've already had inquiries made at the Department of Mysteries- all of their time turners were destroyed when Mr Potter and his friends visited last summer, and all of the shards have been accounted for. Unless he has managed to make one himself, which is unlikely, however powerful he is, then he does not have one."

"Polyjuice?" Moody suggested, "He wouldn't have any trouble making it, now that Snape's joined him."

"We do not know that, Alastor," Remus reminded everyone. It was a battle he had been fighting since the meeting began. He seemed to be the only one, besides perhaps Kingsley, who was willing to give their spy the benefit of the doubt. Everybody else was all too willing to assume that he had decided, after Albus's Death, to publicly declare his true allegiance.

"Like hell we do," Moody snorted, his magic eye constantly rolling. "Where else do you reckon he's buggered off to? Popped out to do a spot of shopping and got waylaid choosing which shoes he liked more? For two weeks?"

"I'll admit that it's possible that he has decided to join Voldemort, but it is equally possible that he is with the children, or even that he has been struck down trying to rescue Harry and Ginny."

Moody just grunted, disbelief clearly written over his face. Luckily, Molly saved remus from having to answer.

"Talking of rescuing Ginny and Harry, when exactly is it that we're going to try to do just that?"

"What? Did I… Did I forget to tell ya?" Mundungus Fletcher spoke up for the first time. Usually, he liked to sit in the corner and pretend he wasn't there; ever since he stole a good deal of Sirius's things, he hadn't exactly felt welcome in the Order.

"Tell us what?" Molly asked, venom dripping from her voice. Remus pitied Mundungus for a second. He wouldn't wish Molly's wrath on his worst enemy. Well, his worst enemy who wasn't a Death Eater or Dark Lord.

"Well, uh, they escaped, didn't they?" he stuttered, clearly doing his best not to flinch, "Some kid went in an' got 'em. They killed Bellatrix Lestrange on the way out, and a bunch of other Death Eaters. It's all over the underworld. Coulda' sworn I told ya."

"You little rat!" Molly screeched, launching her over the table and fastening her hands around the thief's neck. Nobody bothered helping him.

* * *

><p>"We can't rely on the Order to give us any help," Snape reminded them. Pansy rolled her eyes. She had never put much stock in the Order's ability to do anything, which she supposed was probably rather unfair as she didn't exactly know anything much <em>about <em>the Order. Or, you know, anything at all, really.

"If this works, we won't _need _to," she replied, never taking her eyes off the book in her hands. The page she was reading was one that they had all read at least a dozen times in the last few days. It turned out that Professor Snape was a pretty handy researcher, and that Granger carried an almost inexhaustible amount of books around with her in a bottomless bag. At all times. Pansy didn't even _want _to think about what that said about the Gryffindor girl. Not to mention the fact that at least fifty of the books were from the Hogwarts library, and hadn't been stamped out to Hermione. That bit actually upped Pansy's respect for the Gryffindor girl just a bit.

"The Order wouldn't be any help anyway," Ginny sighed, "Can you imagine if my mum knew what we were planning on doing? There's no fucking way she'd go along with it. It's better just to keep them out of it altogether."

Pansy narrowed her eyes at the redhead; she was beginning to sound rather distant, rather tired all the time. As though she was… resigned to something. But she had been the first to agree to Harry's plan, the one to assure them all that it would work. If Pansy didn't know better, she would think that Ginny was hiding something. But she couldn't be, she was far too Gryffindor to keep a secret in the company of three Slytherins, even if Draco barely counted as such.

Speaking of Draco, he was another one that Pansy was rather worried about, despite her better judgement. She had thought that she couldn't care less about the boy, but it turned out that you couldn't really grow up alongside somebody without ending up with a little bit of concern for their wellbeing. He didn't speak to anybody, besides occasionally Snape, just sat in a corner of the warehouse reading some of the books that Hermione had brought with her. Sometimes he would practice dueling with Snape, but never with anybody else. Luna had sat with him a few times, but they didn't speak. Pansy knew that Draco had gone through a lot in the last few weeks, and she was worried what effect all of this had had on him. He had never gone through any hardship at all until the last few years- the worst thing that had happened before that was Harry Potter refusing his hand in friendship.

Unfortunately, she didn't have a great deal of time to devote to worrying about her friends, being forced to spend most of it practicing the shield spell they had found with the others. It was the most powerful one in any of the books they had found, capable even of blocking an avada kedavra. Just one though. The first step of the spell was to conjure a glass wall between them and the attackers, which would take the hit of a killing curse for them. After that first wall was conjured though, they had to focus all of their attention on the wall of magic behind it, so had no energy left over to make another one.

It would be enough though. It had to be enough. The only other option was to leave Ginny and Harry in the warehouse to face Voldemort and all of his Death Eaters by themselves and run. Which wasn't an option at all if you asked Pansy, however often Ginny tried to assure her that it would be fine. Pansy wasn't willing to risk their two best assets on 'fine'. After all, what if they were killed? What then? It would just be two vigilante groups of slightly above average witches and wizards, both with no leader, against the most terrible dark lord in living memory. And that was never going to end well.

No, Pansy Parkinson had chosen the winning side and that was exactly what it was going to be. The _winning _side.

* * *

><p>Diagon Alley was in uproar. The shops were mostly in ruins, smoke billowing from their windows as a few grim-faced aurors attempted to subdue the flames. Civilians ran amok; children were screaming out for their mothers, shop owners weeping for their ruined businesses, a few unlucky people sobbing over the fresh corpses of friend, family or lover. The bodies were piled mostly around the steps to Gringotts where, not minutes before, two cloaked and hooded figures had disapparated.<p>

They were the ones who had done this. Just two men had destroyed one of the most important centers of magical Britain. A few waves of their wands, that was all it had taken.

The terror this had caused was evident. The street had been silent for an entire minute once the figures had left, shocked into immobility. They knew, of course, that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was back. The attacks, after all, had been getting more frequent all around the country, but not one of them had ever thought that he would _dare _attack Diagon Alley with only one other man as back up. Because surely one of the figures had been You-Know-Who. Nobody else could possibly have done this much damage in so little time. That was what they all prayed, at least. Because if there was another with this much power, and this much _hatred, _then England was doomed.

In an alleyway off the main street, two women stood talking in hushed tones. Their garb was that of the Auror's, but if this were true then they were ignoring direct orders to help put out the fires and see to the wounded. If one were to look closely then they would see that the insignia on their robes was not that of the ministry but was instead a blazing phoenix.

"But you _saw _him!" One was protesting.

"I _thought _I saw him," the other answered, "It was the heat of battle though, and it was only a glimpse underneath his hood. Besides, who's to say they didn't simply switch places when I wasn't looking?"

"But I _was _looking!" The first said stubbornly, "They didn't leave my line of sight the entire way through, and I'm telling you they didn't swap places. It was _him. _Both of them were him. There's two of him. _Two. _Denying it isn't going to help anything at all."

The second woman ran a hand over her face, ageing ten years in a second as the truth sunk in.

"You're right," she said eventually, "You're right. It explains everything, really. All of the attacks that couldn't be happening unless he was in two places at once. He wasn't in two places- there's just two of him. This is mental. What are we going to do? We've lost Dumbledore, lost our spy, lost our Chosen one, and now we have double the Dark Lord to fight."

"We'll do what we always do," the first told her, "We'll fight. And maybe we'll die, but we will still fight until we do."

The second woman managed a small smile and stood up a little straighter. They had both been in the first war as young women, and now they were getting on in years but that spark of fight had never quite left either of them. They just needed reminding of that sometimes.

"But first," the first woman said, "We need to report to Remus and Moody. We need to get the word out so we can start preparing. One way or the other, I have a feeling that this war isn't going to last much longer."

* * *

><p>"What are they thinking?" Molly Weasley screeched. Her husband, upstairs at the time, came hurtling down to see what the matter was. On entering the kitchen he was confronted with the sight of his furious wife clutching the Daily Prophet so hard that she had torn through several pages.<p>

"What were ah… what were who thinking, dear?" He asked, reaching out to try and extract the paper from her hand.

"Our youngest children, that's who! And Harry and Hermione, and dear Luna from across the hill, and… and…" She trailed off as a sob racked through her body and Arthur managed to get hold of the paper at last. He flipped it open to the front page, read for a minute, and then thunked down into the nearest chair. The front page was split into two stories; one third of it was devoted to the destruction of Diagon Alley three days ago, and the other two thirds… well…

_**Vigilante group calls He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Out!**_

_In this instance, we at the Daily Prophet feel that events should be allowed to speak for themselves, and so what follows is a copy of the letter we received today. Also, we would like You-Know-Who to be advised that we at the Daily Prophet have evacuated our offices and gone into hiding. _

_Tom Riddle(s),_

_This has gone on long enough. This war has nothing to do with the people you are killing. This was has nothing to do with civilians, with the Ministry of Magic, with the Aurors or with the Order of the Phoenix. _

_This war is between you and us. _

_Come to the graveyard in two days' time at six o'clock. We'll finish this, one way or another. _

_Now, to the Order and the Aurors. We know that you will try and come but it would be very inadvisable. If you wish for an end to Riddle's reign of terror then you will stay away. _

_Signed_

_Harry Potter_

_Ginevra Weasley_

_Severus Snape_

_Hermione Granger_

_Ronald Weasley_

_Pansy Parkinson_

_Neville Longbottom_

_Luna Lovegood_

_Draco Malfoy_

"And Snape!" Molly sobbed, "What is he thinking, letting a group of school children arrange a battle with Voldemort!"

Arthur tuned her out as she continued to wail; a small part of his mind knew that he should be comforting his wife but the larger part of his mind was preoccupied with going over everything he knew about his daughter's powers. Her name had been signed second on the list, after all, second only to the Chosen One, the one boy in all the world destined to be able to kill Voldemort.

"Riddles," he muttered, "They put Riddles. Molly… Molly!"

His wife jumped slightly at his raised tone, her eyes wide and red.

"They wrote Riddles!" Arthur told her urgently, "As in plural. Hestia was right… there are two of him."

"Merlin help us all," Molly whispered. There was silence for a second as they both tried to process this information but before long Molly's sobs began to fill the kitchen once more.

* * *

><p>The atmosphere in the warehouse was grim. Snape was going through the chant for the shielding spell once again with Ron, Hermione, Luna and Neville. From the look on his face, or at least the lack of anger on it, they weren't doing too badly, but Ginny still found it strange to see them all working together with their most hated teacher in such a serious, determined manner. Stranger still was Harry and Draco off in a corner having a strained conversation in low tones. That had been Hermione's idea, of course. Nobody else was fool (or genius) enough to force the two of them to try and settle their differences before the fight. Prior to Draco's little murdering incident, Ginny would have thought that maybe it was possible, but now… even with Draco's rescue mission taken into account, he had a lot to make up for. Still, no wands had been drawn thus far and for that at least she was grateful.<p>

"You're not concentrating," Pansy complained, dragging Ginny's thoughts away from the other inhabitants of the warehouse and onto the one opposite her. They were sitting cross legged on the grimy floor, their hands loosely intertwined between them. In theory, Ginny was supposed to be meditating, in preparation for her role in the battle. The final battle, they hoped. In reality though, Ginny couldn't keep her mind focused. She had too much she needed to say, too much she needed to do before… Well, before.

"I'm trying," she whined, well aware of how childish she sounded. Pansy's nose wrinkled and Ginny smiled to see a smudge of dirt on her friend's cheek. The Slytherin girl had spent two whole days refusing to touch most anything in the warehouse before she finally gave in and allowed not only herself to begin to be covered in the dirt that coated everything but for Snape to transfigure her clothes into something more appropriate. Pencil skirts and heels weren't exactly the most practical of outfits when it came to slumming it.

"Well, you obviously aren't trying hard enough," Pansy snapped, annoyed by the lingering smile on Ginny's lips. Ginny was well aware that the older girl didn't think she was taking any of this seriously. She was, of course. There was nothing in her life that she had ever taken more seriously than this, right now, but at the same time Ginny couldn't help but see the light side of everything. She supposed it had something to do with the knowledge that everything would be over soon, one way or another. Everything would be over. All the fighting with her own mind, the trying to appear normal when she had a primal magical being vying for control of her actions.

Besides, there were only really three outcomes to this battle; they won, it worked as Harry thought it would and she would be fine; they won, it worked as Ginny thought it would and she would be lost to the thunder; or they lost and everyone died.

"Pansy… I need to tell you something. And I need you to understand what I'm telling you," she said suddenly. It was something she had been meaning to say ever since Harry unveiled his plan and Ginny had spotted the flaw, but there had just never seemed to be a good time to say it. But now, they didn't exactly have any time left. Pansy nodded, no smart comeback for once.

"Ever since I can remember I've always loved storms. Natural storms," she clarified, "I could always feel them coming, you know, for days beforehand, like a tension in the air, like the sky was vibrating slightly, getting worse and worse each day until the storm hit. There's this hill out the back of my house. It's the highest point for miles around and I would stand up on that hill in the rain with the lightning and thunder crashing around me and it was… it was perfect. It was the most perfect thing I've ever known. It felt… _right, _you know? Like that was where I was supposed to be, like it was home, like I would never leave it, _could _never leave it."

She paused and Pansy nodded, but didn't speak. Ginny was grateful for that. Her heart was thumping in her chest and she wasn't sure if she would be able to get the words out if Pansy interrupted. She took a deep breath and began again.

"My brothers were always the ones who came and took me back inside. My mum would send them running out into the rain and they would grab me by the hand and I would go. That feeling like… like I shouldn't be leaving the storm, that was still there but they were… they were family, you know? They were more important than anything else I knew. It wouldn't have worked if they weren't family, if I didn't love them. I'd never leave the storm for anybody I didn't love."

Pansy nodded again, gripping Ginny's hand more tightly and Ginny knew that she understood perfectly. She understood what would need to be done and she would do it. Her heart soared, despite her best efforts to keep her emotions under control. She leant forward and, ever so gently, placed the smallest of kisses on Pansy's lips.

All of her words had deserted her, but Ginny knew that with Pansy, she didn't need them.


	13. THIRTEEN

A/N: And it's all over, guys. Which is kind of sad, because I've really enjoyed writing this one. Thanks for those of you who stuck with it, and thanks to the new readers and for anyone who reviewed, even if it was to tell me that my story was stupid.

THIRTEEN

Darkness loomed over the graveyard by the time Ginny, Pansy and their group arrived. It was ten to six and it seemed almost as though the air itself knew of the confrontation that was about to happen it was so thick with tension. Every member of their group had donned blood red robes for the occasion, at Luna's insistence and Snape and Malfoy's disgust. Even Pansy wasn't pleased about wearing the Gryffindor colours, but she at least took comfort in the fact that the colour could just as easily stand for the red plumage of a true thunderbird, or even for Ginny's flaming hair. Ginny, for her part, approved of Luna's choice. No matter what the colour, she was glad that they had something to join them together, to make them a united front rather than a ragtag bunch of teenagers and an ex-spy.

They made their way slowly and silently across the graveyard, weaving through the headstones, until they reached the small clearing which Harry recognized all too well. It seemed only fitting, after all, that Lord Voldemort would die in the place he had risen to life.

Ginny gave Pansy's hand one last squeeze before stepping forward alongside Harry. Pansy stood with the others, arrayed in a line ten feet behind with their wands at the ready. Harry and Ginny didn't make the slightest move to retrieve their own wands; they wouldn't be needed for the battles that these two had ahead.

Hermione and Ron stood together, their fingers intertwined loosely, drawing strength and courage from the contact. They didn't speak, or even look at each other, but they each knew that the other had their back, that they would kill for each other, that they would die for each other. Not that it would come to that, of course, if all went to plan.

Neville gripped his wand as though it were the last thing anchoring him to life and it would be easy to mistake the tremble in his legs as fear. But one only had to look at the expression on his face to realize that it was excitement and determination; determination to win, determination to end this war once and for all. Strangely, it was the exact same look on Snape's face. Even the most different of people, it seemed, could agree at least on this.

Luna was smiling. She stood next to Draco, their white blond hair bright against their robes, making them look almost like siblings in the half light. But there was none of Luna's hope to be found in Draco; he fully expected to die tonight. He wasn't happy about it but he knew that it was the least that he deserved. He was the only one of the group who really had nothing to look forward to after this battle. Should he survive, he would be going straight to Azkaban for murder. No, this fight was his last hurrah. A chance to make things right before he died. It was the most Gryffindor thing he had ever done in his life, and yet he couldn't seem to find it in himself to care all that much.

None of them showed any sign that they had noticed the not-so subtle attempts of almost the entire Order of the Phoenix to sneak up behind them, but that didn't mean a thing. They were hiding behind gravestones, for crying out loud. Sure, they were all disillusioned, but they must have thought they were idiot children for all the precautions they took. After about five minutes, Snape sighed.

"I'll do it, then," he muttered, annoyed. Turning, he swept away from the group, his robes billowing behind him. He strode up to the nearest graveyard and grabbed a handful of whichever unlucky person happened to be hiding behind it. The yelp and the fact that she nearly tripped over identified her easily.

"Nymphadora," Severus snarled, "Take the rest of the god-forsaken Order and get out. We told you not to come. We do not need your help. Our plan will not work if the others have to worry about your safety as well as their own. Leave."

With that, he threw her to the ground and strode back to his place in the line to resume waiting for his old master to appear. Harry glanced back at him.

"Do you think they'll actually leave?" he asked quietly, eyes darting over the graveyard.

"Of course not. But they are retreating at least."

Harry's brow wrinkled.

"How do you know?" he asked, "I can't see a thing."

"I am both older and wiser and far better at everything than you, Mr Potter," Snape sneered, though there was an edge of humour to his voice. "And you would do well to remember it."

Harry snorted and faced front once more. Some of the tension had eased out of his body with the short exchange, but one look at Ginny brought it pouring back in. He wasn't even sure that she had noticed anything going on, she looked so focused. Her back was hunched forward slightly, and her eyes were lighter than usual. Her power was pulsing around her angrily, fluorescent in the darkness of the evening. She was an animal about to attack and Harry was not sure that he had ever seen anything so dangerous. And considering the amount of times he had come face to face with Voldemort, that really was saying something.

"Harry Potter," a voice hissed from the darkness in front of him and Harry's eyes snapped forwards.

"Harry Potter," a second voice whispered and then, just as suddenly as if they had apparated in, he was face to face with two Voldemorts.

"Tom," he greeted the men, resisting the urge to go for his wand. It would do him no good, but old habits die hard. The Dark Lords hissed with anger, but Harry wasn't paying much attention to them at this second. He was peering over their shoulders, trying to make out shapes in the darkness. He couldn't see a single Death Eater, but as Snape had proved when he knew where the Order was, that did not mean they weren't there.

"Where are your little Death Eaters then, Tommy?" Harry asked cockily, "I would have thought you'd want plenty of back up. Or did you just not want anybody to witness your defeat?"

"You dare!" One Voldemort snapped, whilst the other fingered his wand and gnashed his teeth together in anger. "I am going to kill you, foolish boy, and then I will kill all of your friends, all of their families and lastly every single mudblood in this country. And as for my followers… Come forward!"

This last was a shouted command, answered by a ragged cheer as more than a hundred figures in the robes of the Death Eaters surged forward into the clearing. Behind him, Harry could hear the others beginning to chant. There was a click as the glass wall fell into place, the signal to let Harry know that he had five minutes to stall for. Five minutes to stop either Ginny or Voldemort from making their move.

"Let's kill them, my lord," one figure snarled from the front line. He had a hungry look in his eyes, but that was all Harry could tell through the mask.

"Ah, ah, ah," Harry chided before either Voldemort could respond, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"And why not?" Both Riddles asked simultaneously. That was beginning to freak Harry out a little bit. It was sort of like being in the same room as the twins. Uncanny.

"Because you have no idea what you've done, you _foolish boy_," Harry said, using Voldemort's earlier words.

"And what, do tell, have I done?" They asked, "Was it kill your parents, by any chance? Was it kill Albus Dumbledore? Sirius Black? Oh, I notice Neville Longbottom is here, his parents were tortured into insanity in my name, you know. And the Weasley's… I killed their uncles. Severus Snape, I killed his one true love. And, of course, dear Draco. I killed his mother in front of him. So you see, Harry Potter, I have a good idea of what I have done."

Voldemort's grin was sickening. His followers were laughing and jeering behind him and Harry felt his blood rising. Three more minutes… only three more minutes and then they would all die. The chanting continued behind them. Harry risked a glance at Ginny and immediately regretted it; she was poised to kill. Her hair was whipping around her face in a wind that didn't touch the rest of them and claws were growing in place of her fingers. The feathered earring that had started this entire thing seemed to be growing out of her neck now, and even in the second that Harry allowed himself to watch, more feathers began to sprout out of her skin. Just three more minutes, that's all she had to last.

"Oh no, you don't. You know who you've killed, sure, although quite a few of those weren't actually by your hand, but you don't know what you've _done._"

"Tell me then, almighty Harry Potter," One Voldemort began.

"What have I done?" the second finished. They were still smiling. Harry hated that they were smiling.

"You took our blood!" he announced happily, forcing his anger not to show in his voice. He needed them distracted from what the others were doing, he needed them disoriented. "You took my blood twice! You took her blood without even knowing what she is! You would think that you, the great Dark Lord Voldemort, wouldn't make a mistake as stupid as that, but you did!"

The jeers died down from the crowd and both Voldemort's narrowed their eyes. Harry could tell that they wanted to know what he meant, but didn't want to show weakness in front of their Death Eaters. Two more minutes…

"I may be the Chosen One, you see, the one of the prophecy, but I couldn't have done it without you. I mean, if you hadn't acted on the prophecy I guess it really wouldn't have changed anything. You'd still be about to die. But Ginny would be alone up here and I wouldn't get to partake in this honour."

"Enough!"

"Kill them!"

Harry cursed under his breath, he had needed thirty more seconds but all still might not be lost if… The first curse flew, a streak of shining green against the evening sky, and missed. Missed Harry and Ginny, anyway. A crash of glass behind them told them that the others were safe from that curse at least, but just as Harry was about to turn and see if they had managed to get the shield up in time, Ginny exploded.

* * *

><p>"I, um, sort of have a theory about that as well." Harry's voice was sheepish and hesitant, though his eyes showed a strange sort of confidence. It was as if he knew his theory was sound but he was sure the others would not believe him.<p>

"What is it?" Hermione prompted.

"Well, I don't know how many of the rest of you can, I'm guessing definitely Pansy, but I can see Ginny's power. Her Thunderbird power I mean."

Draco raised his eyebrows at this, but Pansy and Severus nodded in agreement while Luna smiled as though she had known this all along. The others merely looked confused and interested and perhaps a little sore that the others could do something that they could not (though this was mainly in Hermione's case).

"But I… I think I can see it better than the rest of you. Or like, I can understand it better. That's why I'm drawn to it so much. Why I stare so much." A faint blush rose on his cheeks at this last admission but Ginny simply took it in her stride. "It's _so _old, you see. It understands everything because it was here before everything, if that makes any sense. It has seen the world grow and will see the world grow forever more and it knows better than anyone else what it good and what is evil. It's entirely incorruptible. It would never aid an evil being, and it would never kill an innocent. A complete innocent, that is. Most people have good and bad in them, right? So it would kill the bad and leave the good. If there was enough good, the person would survive.

"But it's all about the person's intentions, see? Those Death-Eaters-in-training at Hogwarts, they were killed because at that moment they intended to hurt us, to capture us, with full knowledge that we would probably be killed. They made that choice, the choice to aid evil so the Thunderbird judged them and killed them. That's what it does. It _judges _people. Judges them by these old, primal, black and white rules and then, if need be, carries out the sentence.

"And that's how we're going to kill Voldemort. Ginny is going to judge him and she is going to kill him. Or, she is going to kill the Voldemort parts of him anyway. That's where it gets a little complicated. He made his first body with my blood, you see, and his second with both mine and Ginny's. The souls are both his, of course, which will provide enough of himself for Ginny's power to work on him but he also has quite a lot of me and Ginny in him, so he'll only be severely weakened, not dead. That's where I, and the prophecy, come in."

* * *

><p>The clearing was turned into a localized storm. Thunder crashed louder than anything any of the watchers dotted around the graveyard had ever heard before and lightning flashed with such frequency that it was difficult to see anything that was happening. In the center of it all stood seven figures crouched beneath a glowing white shield staring in awe at the scene before them. Because from where they were, they had a perfect view of the fight.<p>

It wasn't a fight. Those were the words they would all repeat later on. And it was true, it wasn't. It was a bloodbath. The first wave of power from Ginny knocked the front two rows to the ground, dead in an instant. Both Voldemorts collapsed, writhing on the ground in agony but Ginny ignored them entirely. Lightning was frying Death Eaters everywhere they looked, rain was pelting down on them so hard that it drove them to the ground and Ginny was amongst them, her claws fully extended, her neck and chest covered in razor sharp feathers. Her talons flashed through the Death Eaters like they were butter and not a one of them had a chance against her. The watchers in the distance were lucky they couldn't see much more than flashes of a bright red figure darting around the clearing, leaving a trail of blood behind her. Up close the scene was disgusting.

There were almost three hundred Death Eaters when she started. When she had finished, there wasn't a single man or woman left alive. She stood, panting, as the storm died down until the evening sky was clear once more. It hadn't taken more than half an hour. Harry stepped forward and opened his mouth to call out to Ginny, to congratulate her. And then she collapsed.

Her knees buckled out from under her and then she fell, face forward, into the mound of blood and limbs and gore that spattered the ground beneath her.

"Ginny!" Harry called in shock, his eyes wide and his breathing shallow. He could hear his heart beating through his body, drowning the sound of someone calling his name behind him. He ran forward, tripping a few times in the mess until he found her. She looked so pale on the ground, covered in gore, so young. Tiny dots of blood speckled her neck and shoulders in an oddly even pattern, which a voice in the back of Harry's shell-shocked mind told him was because of the feathers.

"Ginny," he said again, kneeling in front of her and turning her over. She wasn't breathing, not that he could tell, but his sight was so blurred with unshed tears that he wasn't sure if that meant anything. He leant down to put his ear to her chest. He waited a minute. And then two. And then, through the sound of his own heart still thumping louder than possible, he thought he heard it. A beat, then another, then another. She was alive.

"Harry!" Pansy's yell finally managed to permeate his brain and he stood, turned, left his friend on the ground where she had fallen and walked slowly back to where the two Voldemorts lay. They raised their eyes as he approached, looking up in confusion.

"It's all about prophecy, you see," Harry said absently as he knelt between the two. "It's not really personal," he added as he calmly placed a hand over the Voldemort to his left's mouth, using the other one to cut off the flow of air through his nose. The Voldemort to his right began to struggle away from him, but the going was slow and rather pointless. When Harry turned to him, he was only a few feet away.

"Typical," Harry said, placing his hands over the mouth and nose, "You didn't even try to save him. You know what, I lied before. This is personal."

By the time the watchers around the graveyard came to realize that the battle was over, Harry had collapsed as well.

* * *

><p>"…horcuxes?"<p>

"…destroyed when Ginny…"

"That's why he collapsed… recover?"

Pansy wasn't listening. She didn't care about horcruxes or what Dumbledore's portrait had told them. She didn't care about Orders of Merlin or whether or not Harry bloody Potter was going to recover from his traumatic smothering experience. She didn't even much care anymore that every Death Eater had been accounted for or that Draco Malfoy had been released from custody on the grounds of lack of evidence.

All she cared about was Ginny. She wasn't sure that the Weasley family approved of her, as this was the first time she had been let in to see their youngest daughter. Though Ron seemed to be coming around, given that he had supported her when she told them that she could help. But no, evidently the Weasley matriarch would prefer to allow her youngest child to linger in a coma for weeks rather than let 'that horrible tacky girl who put those ideas in my daughter's head' try to help.

But she was in now. Ignoring the chatter of the other occupants of the room, she leant over Ginny. The girl looked like she could be sleeping, if it weren't for the unnatural stillness and shallowness of her breathing. She was wearing a hospital gown and her hair had been brushed out smooth over her pillow and Pansy hated that. She didn't look like Ginny without her raggedy old band t-shirts and tangled curls.

Quickly, before anybody could try and stop her, Pansy took out her wand and pressed it to Ginny's temple.

"Legilimens." Just like that, Pansy was falling through a storm. She hit the ground with a thud and saw that she was on a hill. Ginny stood next to her, her eyes fixed on the sky with a sad smile on her lips.

"It's time to go," Pansy told her, standing up. Ginny sighed. She took one last, longing look at the storm crashing around them, drenching them to the bones and she took Pansy's outstretched hand.

Because she was family. And family always came first.


End file.
